


Speaking in Tongues

by natsinator



Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [1]
Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Homophobia, College, Cover Art, Gen, Imperial!Yang, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Canon, Roleswap, Secret Identity, Strategy & Tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 70,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsinator/pseuds/natsinator
Summary: Out of the blue, Reuenthal said, "You should be more ambitious." He looked across the table at Yang. "Other people will like you more if they see you have interests outside of history."Yang hesitated a moment, picking up his teacup before answering. "I have ambitions.""Oh? What kind?"Yang hid a small smile behind his teacup. "The wrong kind."When Reuenthal didn't say anything in response, Yang returned to his reading, though he could feel Reuenthal's eyes on him. After about half a minute of silent study, Reuenthal said, "I think I am a man with the wrong kind of ambitions, as well."Yang didn't look up to meet Reuenthal's eyes, but he gave a quick nod.-------------[Roleswap AU, this is part 1 of a longer planned work. This part covers the years UC 782-787. Aside from the obvious, some mild liberties have been taken with the OVA canon. Spelling of character names is whatever I want it to be. This story may or may not manage to simultaneously annoy and please both reuyang and reumitt shippers so take that as you may. This work is being crossposted to royalroad.]
Relationships: Oskar von Reuenthal & Yang Wenli, Oskar von Reuenthal/Yang Wenli, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal
Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650067
Comments: 55
Kudos: 68





	1. Interrogating the Text from the Wrong Perspective

__

_June, 782 UC, Phezzan Dominion_

Yang Tai-long's house on Phezzan was not very large, but it was crammed from top to bottom with delicate and expensive _objets d'art_ that the merchant had picked up on his travels, leaving hardly even room for his fifteen year old son to have a bed and place to sleep while they stayed on the planet.

When Yang Wen-li had asked about this, his father had shrugged and said something along the lines of, "All the house is for is for the residency card that comes with it. If you need somewhere to sleep, you can go stay with your friend, what's his name, Konev..."

Although Yang Tai-long rarely stayed on Phezzan for long, the summer of 782 UC was an exception. He had heard that a famed Phezzani art collector was on death's door, and his collection was to be auctioned off as soon as his body was in the ground. Not wanting to miss that momentous event, Tai-long had briefly passed off the operation of his merchant ship to subordinates and was waiting on the planet with his son.

Yang Wen-li, who had rarely spent more than a few days at a time on a planet since his mother had died, was at first stymied by this odd unscheduled freedom of being able to go places other than the halls of his father’s ship, but quickly realized that his favorite thing to do while on a planet was very similar to his favorite thing to do while off a planet: sit around and read books on history. The only benefit to being on the ground, he found, was reading outside, in the warm Phezzani sun.

This was what Yang Wen-li had been doing, leaning against a tree in a public park, half reading, half dozing, when his friend, Boris Konev, came to find him.

"Hey, Yang," Konev said. "Wake up."

"I thought you were leaving," Yang muttered, swiping some of his shaggy black hair out of his eyes, then rubbing them to wake himself up a little.

"I wanted to." He spread his arms in a chagrined and expressive shrug.

Yang raised an eyebrow. "Then why are you here?"

"My dear mother has decreed that I should spend this summer focused on my academics, rather than gallivanting across space with my father."

"And will you?"

"Will I what?"

"Focus?"

Konev laughed. "That's what I came to bother you about."

Yang did not like the sound of that one bit. "Can't I be a simple man, living in peace, reading a book?"

"Hah. No." Konev sat down under the tree next to Yang. "I have an ingenious plan."

"I somehow remember that every other ingenious plan that you've ever had has gotten us both into deep trouble."

Konev continued as though Yang had not said anything. "My mother likes you, right?" Yang shrugged. "Yeah. She does. And she thinks you're smarter than I am."

"Only because she sees me reading and sees you causing problems. I don't think it's a reflection of—"

"Shush," Konev said. "Here's my thought. If I can prove to her that you and I can go head to head academically, then she'll get off my case about school and let me go back to work with my dad."

Yang pulled his baseball cap down over his face and leaned back against the tree, shutting his eyes. "This sounds like work for me. Don't you know I'm a deeply lazy man?"

"It'll be six hours of next Saturday. You'll hardly even miss it."

Yang leaned forward again and opened his eyes to look at the blonde and innocently smiling Konev. "And what's happening next Saturday?"

"The most unbiased and hardest test I could find to sign us both up for."

"What did you do?"

Konev reached into his back pocket and pulled out two envelopes, one with Konev's name on it, and one with... Yang snatched the second envelope out of Konev's hand.

"Hank von Leigh? You don't even know my name?"

"Well, Yang Wen-li would never pass as the name of anybody who wanted to apply to the Imperial Officers’ Academy on Odin," Konev said, voice still very innocent. "I had to pick something— that was close enough."

"I'm not doing it," Yang said, leaning back and closing his eyes once again. "You can't make me."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to waste my Saturday."

"And what better things do you have to be doing?"

"Plenty. And I don't want to legitimize the Goldenbaum dynasty by interacting with them in any way," Yang said, and tugged his hat down completely over his face.

"It's not like you have to go to school there," Konev said. "All I want you to do is take the test so I can beat you. You don't even have to study. In fact, it would be better if you didn't, so that I have a better chance."

Yang ignored his friend.

"Besides, in terms of 'legitimizing the Goldenbaum dynasty'—you're an Imperial citizen, mister, regardless of your being born on Heinessen. Phezzan residence card means Phezzan citizenship, and Phezzan is technically imperial."

"Not by my choice," Yang said. "I don't even think this scheme is going to work, Konev. Your mother likes me, but not that much. There's no way you can spin six hours of test taking into escaping a whole summer of schoolwork."

"You don't have any faith in my powers of persuasion," Konev said, shaking his head with mock disappointment.

"They're not working on me right now."

"I already paid your fee for the test," Konev said. "Come on, it'll be fun. I'm sure you'll crush the history section."

"And in the math section?" Yang asked. He was notoriously poor at math, the one part of his education that caused his father to worry— how could someone who couldn't keep numbers straight ever hope to run the finances of a merchant ship? It wasn't true that Yang had no talent for math— he had the same brain for it as he had for any other subject— he just cared about it so little that he put no effort into mastering it, and thus was always on the verge of failing his study modules.

"Hey, the worse score you get, the better I look in comparison. Do it for me? Please?"

"I still don't know why I would want to," Yang said. "As my father would say, it's important not to waste effort on things that will bring no benefit."

Konev rolled his eyes, though Yang, with his hat pulled down over his face, couldn't see it. "Look, maybe it will be to your advantage, too. If you do well enough, you can show the results to your father, and maybe he'll see that you'd be better off as some dusty old academic than you would be as a merchant."

"It seems like you're saying we'd be better if we simply switched parents. You have ones who resent your lack of study, and I have a father who would prefer if I studied significantly less."

"Can't pick your family, just have to live with 'em," Konev said with a shrug. "Is that a yes?"

"How early do I have to be awake?"

"Oh, you'll stay at my place Friday night so I can make sure you're up on time."

"That didn't answer the question."

Konev just smirked.

* * *

And so, the next Saturday, Yang was reluctantly dragged along to a building owned by the Imperial embassy on Phezzan, where he and Konev joined the long line of other young men milling around, waiting to go in and take the exam. Konev blended right in, being blonde and bold, but Yang looked nothing like any of the other prospective students and felt extremely awkward as he leaned against the wall and read the book he had brought.

Everyone filed in one at a time, speaking to a bored clerk.

"Name?" the clerk asked, speaking in the Imperial language. Yang had known in the back of his head that, even though they were on Phezzan, imperials would probably still speak their native tongue, but he hadn't realized that this would translate into him being required to take the test in the imperial language. It was a lack of foresight on his part, but it didn't matter-- he was decently good at reading in imperial, anyway.

"Er, Hank von Leigh," Yang said, scratching the back of his head. The clerk gave him an amused glance, but then quickly smothered it and typed the name into his computer.

"Residence card or other proof of citizenship?"

Yang handed over his residence card, which luckily did not have his name on it, just his address and the numerical code for the deed to his father's property. Phezzan held the opinion that they didn't care who their citizens were or where they came from; their only purpose was to be property owners (and thus contribute to the Phezzani economy). It was part of what allowed both the Empire and the Alliance to trade with them freely, under this thin guise of Phezzani citizenship. Of course, this also meant that anyone who did not own property was a non-entity, and not given any of the rights and safeties that being a citizen provided. Yang had never been comfortable with the system, but he certainly wasn't going to argue with the clerk about it now.

The clerk handed the card back. "Test ticket?"

Yang passed over the envelope that Konev had given to him the other day, and the clerk punched the ticket, then gave Yang directions to where he would be taking the exam.

The exam was split into two sections, the first being a written academic test, consisting of two hours of mathematics and science questions then two hours of analysis. After the written test, they would break for lunch, then return for a final two hours of practical examination. Yang had no idea what "analysis" or practical examination meant, and, as he sat and dolefully took the math and science portion of the exam (feeling like had accidentally jumped into something way over his head,) he puzzled about it. He couldn't be too nervous, though, because he felt like his scores on the first section of the exam would disqualify him from standing out in the least, and he had no desire to go to the Imperial Officer Academy, anyway.

Despite hating math, Yang tried his best on that section. He figured if Konev was going to try to use him as a stepping stone to get out of school (a plot that almost certainly was doomed to fail), Yang should give him an actual challenge. As much of one as he could, anyway. Still, it was a relief when the buzzer rang and Yang turned in his much worked-over math section, exchanging it for the mysterious "analysis."

What it turned out to be was, in fact, a military history exam. He was presented with a battle from ancient Earth and asked to "analyze" it, with little further clarification. The documentation that had been provided was immense, and Yang had to admit that he was a little excited about getting to pore over it. He loved the feeling of picking apart the pieces of a story, examining them one by one, and reassembling them into a coherent whole, understanding how even something minor could change the course of history completely.

Yang had a passing familiarity with the wider conflict that the battle he was analyzing had come from-- this particular skirmish was taken from what ancient history knew as the First American Civil War. Yang hadn't studied it in great detail, but he had read at least one book on it. He knew it was fairly popular as a source of study, since many people considered it the first modern, pre-nuclear war, but before this moment, Yang had never seriously focused on military history, preferring the political. Still, he was glad for his loose background knowledge now. It certainly helped as he began to sort through the almost overwhelming amount of information available to him. 

The documents he was looking at included maps of the terrain and the forces' positions over the course of the battle, a description of the actual event written by a contemporary (from the winning side, Yang noted,) photographs of the battlefield and commanders, spreadsheets describing troop strength and supplies, a meteorological note, a tiny amount of background context for any students who might not have knowledge of the overall war, and, surprisingly, a swathe of letters and diary entries from soldiers on both sides of the conflict. He became so lost in fastidiously reading over these documents, jotting down notes and tapping his pen against his face that he scarcely realized how much time had slipped by.

All around him, the other test takers were furiously writing, and Yang was staring into space, processing all the information that he had gathered. He glanced at the clock, almost by accident, and realized that more than half of his allotted two hours had slipped by. He needed to get started on his "analysis" immediately. As he looked back through his notes, a few thoughts began to bubble through his mind.

First of all, he needed to decide what "analysis" meant. Was he just supposed to write down why the battle proceeded as it did? What were the commanders' thoughts on each side? What should have been done differently to change the outcome? What mistakes and correct choices were made on each side? Or was he supposed to come up with something else?

Second, and possibly more troubling, he had discovered several inconsistencies within the primary source documents that he had been given. The way that soldiers' movements over the terrain were described did not make physical sense when he compared it to the map. The eventual victor of this battle was the Confederacy, according to the documents, but it made no sense: they were operating out of a disadvantageous position with a smaller force. Given the description of the events (which, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be a very standard head on conflict), Yang didn't understand how this smaller and less well prepared force could have ever been victorious. He didn't find much useful in the personal letters and diary entries of the soldiers on either side-- they read like pure propaganda. The Confederacy had won this engagement because their forces had been more dedicated to the cause... The Union soldiers were crushed and demoralized, raging at their foolish and weak leadership. The whole thing felt wrong, impossibly wrong. Yang rubbed the back of his head in frustration.

Analysis. What an anodyne word that could mean absolutely anything.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair for a minute. There was more going on here than just facts and a story that he needed to piece together. He needed to take into account where he was, what he was doing. And what he was doing was sitting and taking a test designed to find potential officers for the Imperial military. That was a very specific type of person. This test was written by a specific type of person. This test would also be graded by a specific type of person, who would be looking for Yang to say a set list of things.

Yang realized that he was looking at a very finely crafted piece of propaganda. It almost sent a shiver down his spine. This First American Civil War had been fought over racial supremacism, hadn't it? It was an evil throughline of human history that stretched its hand into the founding of the Goldenbaum Dynasty. Here, he was presented with a nonsense battle in which the force with racially superior ideals had bested an on paper stronger enemy through sheer force of will. Of course, the Confederacy had eventually lost the war. What were the test writers trying to say with this fantasy that they had created?

He had, as he saw it, two choices: write what his actual thoughts were about this (fake) battle, or write what he thought the graders would want to see. He made up his mind, smiled, and leaned forward, beginning to scribble furiously on his paper in the short time remaining to him.

_Now, as you see, I have provided you with the best analysis I can of this scenario. I have detailed the possible mindset of both commanders, which led to them making the choices they did. I have explored possibilities that may have swayed the tide of the battle, and I have discussed what the benefits and risks of those would have been._

_But, of course, no matter if Gen. McLaine had followed my advice or not, there would have never been a way for the Union forces to win this battle, simply because it never happened._

_Based on the documents provided, I can say with some certainty that this whole scenario has been made up out of whole cloth. I am not so well versed in ancient Earth history that I could list every battle of the First American Civil War, and certainly not to the level of detail required to tell you if the Battle of Charles Creek happened, or how it proceeded, but the account presented here could not possibly have taken place._

_You have created a story in which a technically superior force is bested through sheer conviction. I have to wonder: who are you hoping to catch? Do you hope to find officers who believe with such complete sincerity in the ideals of Rudolph von Goldenbaum that they would charge headlong into a seemingly unwinnable conflict, still hoping to come out victorious? Do you hope to find officers who can find ways to rationalize what happened here? Do you hope to find officers who see through this deception and stay silent? Do you hope to find those who speak their minds?_

_Did you simply tell a story that you yourself felt was believable?_

_Well, I would say more, but I've spent so much time picking through your evidence and writing what I thought you might want to see that I've run out of time. I suppose I should thank you for the challenge, if nothing else._

* * *

Yang met up with Konev as soon as they were released from the testing area for lunch. There was a small courtyard where most people were milling around, eating whatever they brought or bought from the street vendor outside. Yang was in that latter category, and devoured his pita wrap before he could say anything to Konev, who seemed to be in the depths of despair. Konev was so down that he didn't notice that the other students were watching them, some suspicious looks on their faces. Yang tried to ignore them.

"I don't think this plan is going to work," Konev said under his breath. "Sorry for dragging you into this."

"It's fine," Yang mumbled around his sandwich. "I'm sure you beat me on the math."

"Yeah, but I don't know anything about ancient Earth history," Konev whined. "My score is going to be terrible."

"The history wasn't the point of--" Yang gave up and shook his head. "It's fine. Maybe you'll redeem yourself on the practical."

Konev seemed disheartened. "Yeah, sure." 

Lunch ended as quickly as it started, with someone dressed in the imperial fashion ringing a bell to summon all the test takers back inside. They were split up into groups of about twenty students, and then escorted to a different room than the one they had been in for the written exam, and told to line up against the wall. The test proctor pointed at two random students in the lineup. “Von Heirmark and von Marche, each of you will pick one person to join your team, then those people will pick next, down the line until everyone has been assigned a team.”

The two students who had been chosen glanced around the room, then started the long process of going down the line and choosing teams. It seemed immediately that most people here knew each other. Most of them were probably the sons of people working at the Imperial embassy on Phezzan, or merchants who primarily traded between Phezzan and the Empire. Yang stood out like a sore thumb, and Konev didn’t know anybody. Konev was picked second to last, leaving Yang standing against the wall with as patient of an expression as he could muster. When Konev left to join his team, he gave Yang an apologetic half shrug, and Yang was reluctantly sent to join the opposite team, who stared at him with a whole host of unfriendly expressions.

“The instructions for this practical task are as follows: you will sit at the desks and put on the immersion helmets, which will play a briefing on the situation. You will have twenty minutes to discuss the strategy you will use with your teammates, and then the simulation will begin. Are there any questions?”

“How is this scored, since we’re on teams?” Konev asked, unafraid to speak the question that everyone wanted to know. He may have figured that since he was going to fail anyway, he might as well say whatever he wanted.

“The simulation will be scored by a team of experts who will holistically judge your performance, including both your behavior during the planning phase and during the execution of the simulation.”

“Is there like a rubric, or...?”

“Mr. Konev, please raise your hand if you need to ask a question. The metrics upon which you will be assessed are not provided, to discourage you from playing to the test. Are there any other questions?”

Konev raised his hand again, this time sarcastically. “Are we playing against each other?” He pointed at Yang, who cringed.

“The two teams will be playing against each other, yes. Any further questions?”

Konev had exhausted his well, so the instructor pointed at the desks with helmets laid atop them, and everyone took their seats. 

Yang slipped the helmet onto his head. It was a little large, and rattled around his ears, cutting out the outside world completely. It took a moment to synchronize, then the display popped up, giving him a briefing of the situation in a mechanical voice, accompanied by diagrams of space and ships existing in it.

He was on the blue team, fighting against the red team. The situation was a small skirmish of spaceships, less than a whole fleet’s worth, fighting over a small planet. The goal for their team was to land their ships on the planet, and presumably the goal of the other team was to stop them from doing so. It was simplistic in the extreme, especially compared to the gordian knot that the “analysis” section had felt like. They weren’t told where the red team’s ships were stationed at the start of this engagement, but they couldn’t be that far away.

Once all the background information had been gone through, the helmet showed an image of Yang sitting around a table with the rest of his team. There was an awkward silence as they sized each other up, no one wanting to be the first one to speak. After a few seconds, von Heirmark, the one who had been chosen first, spoke up, appointing himself the leader. “Well, this seems simple enough.”

It was a simple situation, Yang thought, but how the actual battle would play out would depend entirely upon the actions of the other team. He didn’t think that Konev would be that much of an issue, but he didn’t know any of the other test takers. He felt a little bad going against his friend, and briefly wondered if he should lose on purpose, to save the test for Konev, but then decided against it.

“Are we splitting up our forces? There’s a hundred ships, that gives us ten each,” one of the other boys, von Kiermann by his nametag, said.

“It would be better to have them under a central command,” Heirmark said.

Kiermann narrowed his eyes. “Under your command?”

Heirmark shrugged. “I was picked first. I should be in charge.”

“That’s not how any of this works.”

“And how does it work?”

Yang tuned out their power struggle for a second, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes. He didn’t care who was in charge of this operation, as long as he got ten-- no, any-- ships to command himself. There was an underhanded plan forming in his brain, a just in case kind of plan.

“Do you just want to charge head on?” Yang asked, opening his eyes and tuning back in to the conversation. “I’m sure they are our match in numbers.”

“No, we should do an encirclement attack,” Heirmark said dismissively. “If we can get them with their backs to the atmosphere and press them in, they’ll be forced to turn to descend, and then we’ll have free rein.”

Yang raised an eyebrow.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Heirmark asked, rather defensive all of a sudden. 

Yang was still leaned back in his chair, though having this much negative attention on him was not ideal. “Why do you think they’ll allow you to encircle them?”

“They’re trying to stop us from getting down to the surface,” Heirmark said, mockingly patient. “If we press them, the only direction they can move is back towards the planet, or they risk letting us have it.”

“Sure, but…” Yang used the helmet’s computer to construct the diagram of this encirclement attack that Heirmark was describing. “If you bunch them all together while you’re spread out, they’ll punch right through your center, and then fire on your backsides as you descend.”

“But by then we’ll be descending,” Heirmark said, again with a smug tone. The others around the table were nodding, seemingly having accepted him as their leader. “As long as one ship gets down, we win.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to encircle them,” Yang said. “If they’re smart, they’ll also spread out wide enough that you won’t be able to.”

“In that case, we’ll punch through THEIR center.”

Yang sighed. “In evenly matched situations, the defense is always going to have the upper hand, at least at the beginning. And this battle isn’t going to last long enough for that to change.”

“So what are you proposing instead?”

“Kiermann asked if we were each getting command of a section of the battle. Are we?”

“Why?”

“I would like to have a backup plan,” Yang said. “A small number of ships, getting down to the planet away from the main battle. That’s still technically a win condition, like you said.”

Heirmark was silent for a second. “I don’t trust you.”

“It doesn’t really matter if you trust me. I’d just like to make sure we win.”

“Tell me the details of this plan in full, and somebody else can do it.”

“Fine,” Yang said. He decided he cared less about personally enacting it than he did about just getting through, and ideally winning. “Take a couple ships, five maybe. When we’re still a good distance from the planet, have them place themselves in a trajectory that will take them down on the opposite side of the planet. They need to do a burn to put themselves in that orbit at the same time as the main fleet heads in, so that the action is disguised, and then they need to cut all communications and turn off their engines, so that they’re less visible. Once they’re on the other side of the planet, if there’s resistance there, they should do their best to avoid it.” Yang shrugged. “I guess if I was running the other team, I’d put a few ships back there, to stop this. So maybe put most of the landing force on one ship, and devote the others to defending it, so that as long as that one ship makes it down…” He trailed off.

Heirmark had a tight lipped expression. “That doesn’t seem like it would actually be a win, in reality.”

“What about this battle is reality?” Yang asked. “Two tiny fleets, no commanders…” He shrugged again. “If we’ve been told the way to win is landing on the planet, you might as well try to maximize the chances of that happening.”

“Then why don’t we all just split up and have every ship scatter randomly?” Kierman asked. “We should all just do that.”

“We’re starting far enough away from the planet that they’d be able to pick off individual ships like that. The only reason that sneaking in through the back might work is because they’ll be looking at the main engagement, which we should also try to win. Just in case,” Yang added lamely.

“I don’t like it,” Heirmark said. “I don’t think that’s what we’re being graded on.”

“We don’t know what we’re being graded on,” Yang said. He decided to try something else underhanded, looking around the table for a second. “Should we vote?”

“What are you, a republican?”

“We’re a council of equals,” Yang said. “If the Kaiser were here, we could ask him, but he’s not, so we can’t.” He was smiling his placid smile.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” Heirmark said. “We’re not equals.”

Yang shrugged. “As you say.”

Kiermann sighed. “Fine, let’s just vote, we’re running out of time. All in favor of his plan?” He jerked his finger at Yang. A couple people timidly raised their hands, then more when they saw that their peers were doing the same. Yang stuck his hand in the air to nudge them over the half mark.

Heirmark frowned deeply. “Fine. Kiermann, since you wanted a detachment so bad, you can enact his stupid plan.”

“Five ships isn’t going to make or break the encirclement,” Yang said. “If you don’t end up needing them, then you can take as much credit as you want.”

That was apparently the wrong thing for Yang to say, because Heirmark glared at him. “The rest of you, here’s how we’re going to divide the ships.”

Yang ended up being directly in the back of the encirclement tactic, a position that was sure to earn him no glory unless the whole thing was broken through. He was having an amusing time playing with the computer control of his ten little ships as they lined up their organization and prepared to be ‘dropped in’ to the simulation proper. 

Unfortunately for both Yang and Heirmark, the battle started out looking like both of their plans would end up being almost completely irrelevant. While they were still too far away from the planet to see the enemy lineup, Kiermann departed with his tiny detachment of ships, and the main fleet moved in towards the planet.

It was almost immediately visible that encirclement was not going to work, but not that their group was going to fail. The opposing team had spread themselves very thinly out, in a broad sphere across the whole surface of the planet. Yang actually sighed and felt bad for them as their fleet came in towards the planet, and the opposing team didn’t budge.

“Well, we might as well stay together,” Yang muttered into the coms. “We can punch through anywhere. They haven’t massed enough force to stop us.”

“What kind of idiocy is this?” Heirmark wondered aloud.

As he said this, though, Yang became a little worried. Konev wasn’t brilliant (his stupid plans did tend to get Yang in trouble) but he also wouldn’t let his forces be stomped on just to let Yang look good. “Maybe it’s a trick?” Yang wondered aloud. 

“The trick of getting your nose ground into the dirt gracefully,” Heirmark said. 

In any event, they were now charging towards the planet, full steam ahead. A few of the ships from the opposing fleet put up token resistance towards them, shooting one or two of their fleet down, but they were quickly dispatched by the main wings of Yang’s fleet.

Then, of course, the trick was revealed. The atmosphere of the planet seemed to boil for a second. Yang ordered his ships to move out of the way as quickly as they could, and luckily for him, he was in the back of the pack, so he was able to scatter, but the planet’s main gun sent out a huge blast that melted through a large portion of the rest of the fleet.

Immediately, Yang’s helmet coms were filled with the voices of the other test takers, yelling and complaining about how most or all of their ships had been taken out. Yang took stock of the situation. In one stroke, they had been reduced to about thirty percent of their original numbers (not counting the detachment that Kiermann had going towards the other side of the planet). 

“Spread out!” Yang yelled over the chaos. “Descend as quickly as you can, before they can fire again.”

It wasn’t the best order, maybe, and he didn’t know if anyone would listen to him, but it was better than them all staying bunched up and frozen in place, just waiting to be shot at again. He himself ordered his ships to descend, and even though they were shot at again by the ground gun, his command to spread out had apparently saved enough of them. As Yang’s ships began their true descent towards the surface of the planet, the simulation ended, helmet going completely black.

Yang sat and breathed deeply for a few seconds, loosening the unexpected tension he found in his shoulders and back. It wasn’t real. It was fine. Winning or losing didn’t matter.

He finally lifted the helmet off his sweaty head to reveal the chaos of the classroom. It seemed that everyone was yelling at everyone else about everything, win or lose, including at the proctor of the exam (for not giving their side the information about the main gun of the planet). Yang had no desire to participate in that. So, as quietly as possible, he slipped out of the main room and outside.

He was waiting for Konev to appear when, unfortunately, Heirmark stepped outside.

“You,” Heirmark said, coming right up towards Yang.

“What?” Yang asked.

“You knew about that--”

“No I didn’t,” Yang protested. His words were meaningless, though, because Heirmark was already swinging a punch at Yang’s face.

He ducked out of the way, and Heirmark stumbled forward a little. Heirmark’s next punch found home, though, right in Yang’s stomach, and he let out an ‘oof’ of breath and almost fell backwards, flailing his arms to stay upright. Luckily for Yang, the rest of the test takers were now filing out of the building, including Konev, who stepped in front of the red faced Heirmark. 

“You won,” Konev said mildly. “I have no idea why you’re angry about that. It makes you look like a real fucking idiot, though.”

Heirmark scowled, sizing up Konev and deciding that he wouldn’t win in a fight against him. Konev was taller than the average fifteen year old by a few inches, and Heirmark was more stout than he was sturdy looking.

“Come on, _von Leigh_ ,” Konev said with a smirk. “I’m sure my mother will be thrilled to hear how you beat me fair and square.”

Yang, still slightly out of breath from being punched, nodded, gave a goodbye shrug to the rest of the onlooking test takers, then followed Konev out towards the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed chapter 1, which is essentially "Yang takes the APUSH exam for funsies."
> 
> Title is a reference to fanwank of yore, but also, because I'm the most pretentious person in the universe, this whole part of the story is, in fact, about. Interrogating the text. This gets brought up so many times. We're operating on levels of pretentiousness heretofore unknown to man.
> 
> Thank you to Lydia for the beta read.
> 
> Hey, if you're bored, go read my original space opera @ bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	2. The Future is a Foreign Country (They Do Things Differently There)

_April, 783 UC, Phezzan Corridor_

Yang Wen-li was in his father's office, having a rather uncomfortable talk about the future. His father sat behind his desk, cross legged in his chair, polishing an antique brass sculpture. Wen-li leaned against the wall, holding the polishing cream and spare rags loosely in his hands, offering them to his father on occasion.

"It's not that I'm opposed to the study of history," Tai-long said. "It's just not a particularly useful subject."

"You know I have no interest in business administration," Wen-li said. "If that's all you're willing to send me to school for."

"It's not that I'm unwilling." He scrubbed the sculpture gently, despite the tension in the conversation. 

Wen-li knew that his mother’s family often criticized Tai-long for caring more about his collections than he did about his own son, but he was sure that wasn't true.

"I just don't want you to get unreasonable expectations about the future," Tai-long continued.

"Like what?"

"You're going to inherit this ship, Wen-li. Maybe when you've done that, and you've made enough money from it that you can safely retire, you can go study history at your leisure. But until then, money is the only thing that will stop you from having to do things you don't like."

"If I get a scholarship to Heinessen Memorial—"

"I don't recall them giving scholarships to merchant families."

The conversation seemed to come to a dead stop. Yang let the cloths and polishing cream hang loosely at his side. "You'd pay for me if I wanted to study art, though?"

"Well, art feeds the soul, doesn't it? Just like money feeds the stomach."

Wen-li shook his head. "It's four years," he said. "Can I have four years of history? Then I'll come back here and work with you."

"Wen-li, if I give you up, I know you'll find some way to worm yourself into a doctoral program, and I'll never see you again." He put the sculpture down on his desk and turned to his son, who looked rather deflated. "Is this really what you want? Is it the only thing that will make you happy?"

"I—" Wen-li began. "Yes."

Tai-long nodded. "Alright."

"What?"

"You can study history. Do what you need to to be happy." Tai-long picked up a different sculpture and began polishing it with renewed vigor, as though nothing had happened between the two of them. Wen-li was frozen in place, a smile breaking out on his face. He was torn between hugging his father, and his father's clear desire to do nothing other than polish sculptures. So he just awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, getting polishing cream in his hair.

"Thank you," Wen-li said. "I'll try to make you proud."

"I am proud of you," Tai-long said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world.

It was at that moment that the ship's alarm began blaring. Tai-long sighed and put down his sculpture gently before standing and leisurely stretching. This was a regular occurrence aboard their ship.

"Engine trouble again?" Wen-li asked.

"When it's not engine trouble, it's something else. You know the drill. Shoo."

"I could help—"

Tai-long laughed. "And I could tell you all the Kaisers of the Goldenbaum dynasty. Go. To the shuttle. I'm sure this won't take that long to deal with."

So the father and son trooped off in different directions aboard the ship, Wen-li and all the rest of the non-essential personnel rousing themselves and heading towards the little shuttle, the safest area on the ship in case of emergencies, and Tai-long and the few people qualified to work on the engine heading for the engine room.

That was the last time that Wen-li ever saw his father. While he waited in the shuttle with his usual patience for the situation to resolve, the whole ship was rocked with a sickening crack. The rear section of the ship exploded in a blinding flash of light. Everyone inside the shuttle was protected from the blast and from the vacuum of space that rushed in to the now-destroyed main body of the ship; everyone in the engine room was killed instantly.

This information trickled into Yang's brain bit by bit as the overwhelmed sensors of the shuttle kicked back in, and he closed his eyes in pain for a long moment.

"What are we going to do, Mr. Yang?" one of the other staff asked, looking to him for instructions for some reason. It wasn't as though Yang Wen-li had any title aboard the ship aside from being his father's son.

The words and instructions came out of him almost unbidden, coming from a calm and collected place inside of himself that was able to put aside the horror of the destruction of the only life he had ever known. "We're still in the Phezzan corridor. There's plenty of ships around we can call for help."

His hands shook as he activated the shuttle's radio and began sending out his distress call.

* * *

_April, 783 UC, Phezzan Dominion_

Yang stayed at Konev's house on Phezzan for a few days, which was maybe the reason why the debt collectors weren't able to track him down until he appeared in public for the funeral.

It was a small affair, and there wasn't any body to put in the grave, so it was really just the few people who knew Yang's father coming to lay flowers at a sad little headstone. Yang didn't cry, though he wanted to. He felt stiff and restricted in his suit, and he wished that he could go lay down and sleep for the next thousand years. Konev understood this and kept his comments to a minimum.

When all the other mourners had left, and thick grey clouds were hovering in the sky, Yang and Konev got ready to leave the graveyard together. As they headed out down the path, they were approached by a tall man in a grey suit.

"Yang Wen-li?" the man asked, looking Yang over.

"Yes," Yang said, rather reluctantly. "You missed the funeral."

"I'm very sorry for your loss," the man said, though he didn't sound sorry at all. "My name is Mark Jamai, with Phezzani Mercantile Consolidated. I'm here about your father's debts."

"Debts?" The words weren't really processing in Yang's brain.

"Yes, Mr. Yang. Your father owed my firm a significant amount of money, much of it tied up in the value of his ship. I have come to collect—"

"The ship is gone."

"We are well aware of that, Mr. Yang. Unfortunately, the debt must still be paid. I—"

Yang ignored the man and began to walk back down the path. He didn't have any money. His father's business had never had anything to do with him.

"Mr. Yang, if you would like to discuss a payment plan—"

"Can't you see that he's mourning? You couldn't wait until the body was cold, could you, you leech?" Konev was unexpectedly angry, getting in between Yang and the debt collector.

"There was no body," the man said mildly. "As I was saying, if you would like to discuss a payment plan, we can show you—"

"Can't you just take his artwork? Won't that cover it?" Yang was referring to the vast collection of art that Tai-long had accumulated over the years; he was a dedicated collector.

"We have had your father's collection assessed," the debt collector said. "Its value is minimal, especially when compared to the loss of the ship."

"I don't know how you expect me to pay you, then," Yang said. "I don't have any assets."

"Your public record and scores on the Heinessen Memorial entrance exam indicate that you are a very bright young man. A fifteen-year indentureship would pay off the outstanding balance, provided that you don't incur—"

"Fuck you," Konev said, taking Yang by the arm and dragging him away.

"Mr. Yang, I warn you that there are grave consequences for failure to repay—"

But Yang and Konev were already gone, Konev dragging Yang into a run down the cobblestone cemetery path and out into the streets of Phezzan.

Konev brought him back to his own empty house. Konev's parents couldn't stay on Phezzan because they had their own ship to run, but when Konev had heard what had happened to Yang's father, he had decided to stay on the planet for his friend. It was a very sweet thing for him to do, but Yang was so consumed with his own thoughts that he was not really registering it. They sat at Konev's kitchen table. Konev made some tea, then picked the lock on his parents’ alcohol cabinet and poured a generous helping of brandy into Yang's beverage.

They sat in silence for a long time, the rain beginning to fall outside, streaking down the windowpanes and filling the kitchen with a muted light.

"I'm sorry," Konev said.

"For what?"

"Well, for your dad. But I shouldn't have lost my temper at that guy. He..." Konev trailed off.

"Thank you," Yang said. "I don't know what I'd do without you around."

"You might be better off without me shouting at important people. The PMC can make your life a living hell."

Yang didn't say anything.

"What are you going to do?" Konev asked.

"I don't have a choice. If I have to pay the debt..." Yang sloshed the dregs of his tea around in his cup, and Konev got up to pour him some more.

"I don't want you to have to slave away with them for twenty years."

"They said fifteen."

Konev shook his head. "I've known some guys who got taken in with them. They always find ways to stretch you out, like you're not being productive enough, so they add time onto your sentence, stuff like that."

Yang shrugged miserably. "I guess I look forward to that."

"They don't let you have a life. Don't let you go anywhere, see anyone, can't get married, can't get an education, nothing. You'll be an old man by the time you're out." Konev's hands were shaking as he poured the tea, splashing a little of it on the table. Yang reached over and wiped it up with the sleeve of his suit.

"And if I don't go with them?"

Konev sat down and studied the table.

"What, Konev?" Yang asked. "What do they do if you refuse?"

"They don't let you refuse. They'll hunt you down."

Yang stared out the window, at the rain dripping down. He cradled his teacup in his hands. "Then I don't have a choice."

They were silent for a long time. Yang felt like he was laying bricks in the wall called 'resignation', trying to block any hopes and sadnesses away where they couldn't get through. He could be a machine for fifteen years, and then he could be free. It was funny, in a bleak sort of way, that his father had just been telling him that money was the secret to being able to live life free of other people telling him what to do. The converse was more pressing, right at this moment. A distinct lack of money meant that he was going to be forced to give himself up completely.

"There is one thing," Konev said, an unexpected tinge of hope in his voice.

"What?" Yang couldn't even muster that tiny level of excitement.

"Be right back," Konev said. He got up from his chair and dashed upstairs, feet pounding on the wooden floors above Yang. "Found it," he said when he returned, holding up a ripped envelope.

"What's that?" Yang asked.

"You don't remember? It's yours." He slid it across the table to Yang, who picked it up as though it were a dead thing. The address on the front of the envelope was his home address on Phezzan, but the name on the envelope was wrong, addressed to 'Hank von Leigh'. Abruptly, Yang remembered. This was his result from the Imperial Officers' Academy entrance exam. He had handed it to Konev without opening it as soon as it had arrived, since it was Konev's whole plan to trick his mother into letting him get out of school (it hadn't worked, at least partially because the letter had arrived long after summer was already over.) He hadn't known what the letter contained, or that Konev had kept it, for some reason.

_Herr von Leigh,_

_We are pleased to announce that your scores on the Imperial Officers' Academy Entrance Examination have qualified you for admission to our institution. Please report to Odin for the term that begins 1 August 475._

_Entrance to the IOA is extremely competitive. For your reference, we provide the ranking of new admissions. Your score on the entrance exam has placed you at rank_

_2/1500_

Yang didn't bother reading the rest of the letter, and tossed it down on the table, where the corner of it landed in a few drops of tea that he had failed to wipe up, getting it soggy.

"What?" Konev asked. "For the record, you crushed me. I didn't even get in."

"I can't join the Imperial Fleet," Yang said.

"Why not?" Konev asked, leaning forward on his elbows.

"The Goldenbaums go against everything I believe in. Besides..." He gestured to his whole self. "You know I don't look like 'Hank von Leigh.'"

Konev grinned. "I still think I did a great job picking out that name."

"I won't do it," Yang said. "I can't."

Konev frowned. "Look— get a free education on the Imperials' money, then you can just, like, do a shitty job as an officer for a couple years, and then you'll be free. New life, new identity— you won't be a slave. You have to. I'll kill you myself if you don't."

Yang shook his head. "I can't be a soldier for them."

Konev glared at him. "You'd rather throw the rest of your life completely away? For the PMC of all companies? They're not exactly angels, either."

Yang shrugged, wishing he could escape this conversation and just go to sleep. His head was beginning to throb. Konev wasn't relenting, though.

"What would your dad say?" Konev asked. That was a low blow, and Yang frowned and leaned forward.

"You don't know anything about what he would say."

"I do too. It's not like you didn't tell me exactly what you talked about in your last conversation."

Yang was losing this argument. He picked up the envelope that his admissions letter had come in and slowly began to twist and rip it to shreds.

"He told you that, well, first of all, he wanted you to be happy, and second, he wanted you to have enough money that you can live your life the way you want to. The only way either of those things are going to happen is if you don't let your life get taken over by the PMC. You've got one chance to escape. I think you should take it."

Yang leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, head tilted to the ceiling. Konev was making a rather ironclad argument, if one took out the fact that cooperating with the Empire would put blood on Yang's hands. He had felt vaguely dirty even just getting that letter, which was why he had tossed it to Konev as quickly as he could.

"I was born on Heinessen. I'm an Alliance citizen. How can I go to Odin and learn how to fight against the 'rebel fleet'?" He said those last two words in the imperial language. Rebel fleet was the term that the Empire used to refer to the Free Planets Alliance's military.

"Yang Wen-li is an Alliance citizen, sure. Yang Wen-li is also a person saddled with a lifetime of debt that he'll never be able to repay. Hank von Leigh, on the other hand, is a nobody Phezzani citizen, who has the distinction of having done extremely well academically and scored himself admission to one of the best schools in the galaxy. Hank von Leigh could even study military history, if he wanted. Think of it as a new beginning."

"Any history that happens at that school is pure propaganda."

"Sure. But you're smart," Konev said, as though that changed the situation at all.

After a long moment, Yang asked, "How would I even get to Odin?"

Konev grinned in triumph. "I'm sure my mother can find someone to give you a ride." 

* * *

_August, 475 IC, Odin_

That summer, a very out of place looking young man arrived on Odin, marched himself up to the Imperial Officers' Academy, presented himself, and received a room and a uniform and a class schedule. Considering that a home, things more than the clothes on his back, and some regularity in his life were all things that Yang Wen-li had been missing since he had fled Phezzan, he found himself uncomfortably grateful to the Imperials.

The room he had been assigned was small, barely room for a bed and a desk and a closet, but that was plenty. He had been given a little brass plaque to slide into the doorframe, with his new fake name engraved on it. Just another weird little thing to get used to. He laid on his bed and closed his eyes, simply waiting for time to pass. There was going to be a freshman convocation dinner later that day where he was sure to meet all of his new classmates, something he was not looking forward to.

Although Yang wanted to sleep, he couldn't, so he pulled out his computer and signed on to the IOA intranet, checking to see if there was any news he should pay attention to. To his dismay, alongside announcements about the convocation dinner, start of classes, general campus updates, and messages from alums, there was a large banner displaying "Welcome to the Class of 479!" and then a button below it that read "View current class ranks." Yang clicked on it with some trepidation, though he already knew the worst that it would contain.

_Note: Incoming ranks are based solely on performance during the IOA entrance exam. Recalculation occurs at the end of each marking period._

  1. _Oskar von Reuenthal_
  2. _Hank von Leigh_
  3. _Franz Gautier_
  4. _August Samuel Wahlen_
  5. _Peter von Deitch_
  6. _Cartier Ansbach_
  7. _Jon von Strum_
  8. _Fritz-Joseph Bittenfeld_
  9. _Arnot Messier_
  10. _Walter von Stuben_



The list went on, showing the rank for all 1500 incoming freshmen. Yang wished that recalculation would occur immediately, so that he could slide down into a much more comfortable low zone. He had no desire to do well, and being in second place painted a target on his back. Whoever this Reuenthal was would probably think he was aiming for first, and all the people below him would be trying desperately to steal his rank. Yang could only assume that the culture here was fiercely competitive.

A message flashed up on his computer screen then, and he clicked it. It was from someone named Ernst von Eisenach.

_Von Leigh,_

_Incoming freshmen are assigned an upperclassman mentor of their same class rank. We apparently have the great joy of being assigned to each other._

_This has nothing to do with you, but I have no desire to meet in person, unless you are eager to lose at chess against me. Though I do not wish to meet face to face, I also am prepared to fulfil a certain measure of mentorship duties. If you have questions, TEXT ME (do not call me; I will not answer; I will be annoyed) at the number in my signature. I will answer them._

_Please do not do anything stupid that would reflect badly upon me. Try to keep your rank. It would be shameful for me to have my mentee plummet from the very comfortable number two spot immediately. (Though perhaps I am a hypocrite here: my intent is fully to stay number two until the month before graduation, then purposefully tank my rank in order to slip into number three, thus allowing me to avoid speaking at graduation. I play the long game, as I must.)_

_If you would be so kind as to attach a picture of yourself to the reply of this message, it would help me greatly in my quest to avoid encountering you on campus._

_Your mentor,_

_Ernst von Eisenach_

_Strategic Warfare Dept., Class of 478_

That was perhaps the most confusing message that Yang had ever read. He typed out a reply, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

_Von Eisenach,_

_I'm terrible at chess. If you did challenge me, I'm sure it would be a complete disaster on my end. Unfortunately, I can make no promises about not disappointing you with my rank._

_Picture attached. I trust you will have an easy time avoiding me._

_Very respectfully,_

_Hank von Leigh_

_Military History Dept., Class of 479_

He felt extremely weird, typing out his fake name and sending the message, but what else was he going to do? He didn't get a reply, so he could only assume that Eisenach was having a good laugh at his expense after seeing his photo.

Yang did manage to doze off after a while, and was woken by his blaring alarm that he had set to remind him of dinner. He changed into his formal cadet uniform (black and made of nicer fabric than the utilitarian grey-blue daily wear outfit for cadets) and tried to slick his hair back, not entirely successfully. The sun was setting already when he began walking towards the large, formal dining hall on the other end of campus. Luckily, it was dark and no one seemed to look closely at him or know who he was.

His luck ran out when he entered the dining hall and discovered that seating, at least for this meal, was assigned. One of the Academy staff at the door asked his name, gave him the look that Yang was coming to call in his head _that look_ , and then pointed him to the very front of the room. Though in reality everyone around him was chatting and sizing up the people at their own tables, probably paying no attention to him, Yang couldn't help but feel observed.

The front table seemed to seat about thirty people, and only a few had shown up by the time that Yang sat down, fidgeting uncomfortably in his stiff-backed chair, watching the candles burning on the table dance.

The next student to take his place at Yang's table sat directly across from him, in the number one spot. Oskar von Reuenthal, according to the ranking list and folded nametag in front of his plate. Reuenthal was a tall, dark haired man. He had a thin, handsome face, but wore a closed off expression, and he openly stared at Yang (though not with hostility), giving Yang a chance to see his mismatched eyes: one black, one blue. There was certainly something about him that interested Yang-- he wasn’t what he had expected, though he couldn’t have said why-- maybe it was the graceful way he moved-- but Yang didn’t want to study Reuenthal the way Reuenthal was studying him.

Facing his silent scrutiny, Yang leaned back in his chair and tilted his head towards the ornate ceiling, as though there were something there of interest. Let Reuenthal look, if he wanted to stare so badly.

Yang couldn't ignore the rest of the high-ranking freshmen as they came in after a few minutes, not least because one of them, Bittenfeld, immediately caused a scene. Though it seemed like the number one and number two spots had been set across from each other intentionally, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason why the others had been placed down. Perhaps there had been a mixup in the order the nametags were printed in.

Bittenfeld was broad shouldered, with a flaming shock of red hair swept back from his face. He sat down two seats down from Reuenthal with a thump, then pointed at the man sitting next to Yang. "Hey, Ansbach," Bittenfeld said.

Ansbach, a dark haired and plain looking man, looked over at him. "What?"

"You might be worried that I'm aiming for your place," Bittenfeld said. "But you shouldn't be. I'm aiming for his."

Bittenfeld pointed down the table at Reuenthal, who simply said, "Oh?"

The man in between Bittenfeld and Reuenthal, a kind faced man with auburn hair, Wahlen, turned to Bittenfeld and said, "You know that's not how ranks work, right?"

Bittenfeld looked flustered at this rebuttal, and crossed his arms over his chest, giving Wahlen a nasty look. To diffuse some of the tension, Wahlen asked, "What departments are you all in? I'm strategic warfare."

"Strategic warfare," said Bittenfeld immediately.

"Strategic warfare." Ansbach.

Everyone looked at Yang, who shrugged. "Military history."

Then Reuenthal. "Strategic warfare."

"How are you number two?" Bittenfeld blurted out. "My cousin said that military history is for people who can't hack it in strats, but are too bad at math to go into engineering."

"You could stand to be more polite to people who outrank you," Wahlen said, though even his voice contained an edge of curiosity, and his look at Yang was one of appraisal.

"I like history."

"You're going to be eaten alive," Ansbach said. His voice held none of the mellow curiosity of Wahlen's, nor the easy bluster of Bittenfeld’s. Ansbach had pure malice in his tone.

Yang was saved from having to reply by music beginning to play at the front of the room. All of the students stood in a wave, coming to attention and looking at the head table. Yang felt like he was half a second behind everyone else, just mimicking their motions, but it seemed good enough for now. The staff filed into the room, standing in front of their chairs at the head table, and then the Academy chancellor, von Steger, gestured for everyone to be seated and for the music to end.

"Welcome, class of 479! As it is every year, it is an honor to be standing before you, the next great group of leaders in our Empire. Though you are young, you are the best our great nation has to offer. You should know that every year, over fifty thousand test takers from around the Empire apply for spots at the IOA. Your class of merely 1500 represents the most select number of them. You have a great deal to live up to..."

Yang tuned the speech out and looked around the room. There was only so much self aggrandizing Imperial talk he could bear at once. Waiters were walking around the tables, bearing huge trays covered in wine glasses, slipping them in front of each student. So, there would be a toast. 

As Yang looked around, he felt observed once again, and turned slightly. He made eye contact with Reuenthal, who was watching him rather than the speech. Yang couldn't blame him for not paying attention, but he felt rather uncomfortable with the attention from the other man.

A waiter slipped a glass of wine in front of Yang. He resisted the urge to fiddle with it, keeping his hands in his lap, trying to relax. 

The speech continued, seeming to stretch out until all the motion in the hall ceased. Finally, Chancellor von Steger said, "And now, to your future as students and soldiers, and to the Empire. Sieg Kaiser! Prosit!" He raised his own wine glass from the table.

"Prosit!" shouted the massed student body.

Yang raised his glass half-heartedly, mumbled, "Prosit," under his breath. 

Across from him, Reuenthal had a tiny smirk on his face. "Prosit!" he said to no one in particular, then drank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made the executive decision to make everybody go to officer school here from ages 16-20ish, b/c it was "close enough" to whatever mess of ages looks like, and also "close enough" to people being normal college age. Every time I think about how it's canon that Reinhard has less than a high school level education (he left school at 15?!?!) I lose my FUCKING marbles. Anyway, it's college.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Check out my original science fiction at bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	3. This War of Mine(s)

_ August, 475 IC, Odin _

Yang's class schedule was packed. This annoyed him, since he had spent the vast majority of his life aboard his father's ship completing study modules at his own pace. For him, that meant that he would put aside one day every month to dedicate to doing nothing but math, speed through the course as quickly as possible, and then not think about it again until his next self-imposed math day. For his other subjects, he puttered along and did well, since they were both easier and more personally enjoyable. This relaxed approach to education left him with plenty of free time to use as he saw fit. That time was over now, though, and he had class every day, six hours a day, without even a break for lunch in the middle. That was a thirty class-hour schedule, not even counting the mandatory physical training on weekends. Was that normal?

He checked on the intranet to see the class lists of each of his courses. As the same student names popped up over and over, he began to realize what was going on. He had signed up to be in the military history department, and so was in all those first year classes, but it appeared that all the top scoring students (the top thirty or so) had been tracked together in the strategic warfare program. Yang was not in the strategic warfare program, but someone had put him in those classes anyway, either by accident or by design. He frowned at the screen, wondering if he should write a letter to the registrar asking to be dropped from the strategic warfare class list. But then he shook his head and closed his computer. Better not to make trouble. They'd figure out he didn't belong in those classes quickly enough when he did badly in them. He'd still do well in his history classes, of course.

If he couldn't ask the registrar, he could at least ask his mentor. This first question would at least serve as a test for if Eisenach was going to be prejudiced against him or not. He tapped out a question.

>hi Eisenach, this is Leigh, your mentee

>I've been given a double course load (all strat classes + all history classes)

>do I have to be worried about the strat classes? Are they difficult?

To Yang's surprise, Eisenach responded almost immediately.

< the difficulty of strats is entirely based around how good your classmates are

< you should drop the history dept

< they're only going to drag you down

< why did you sign up for that anyway?

>history is what I want to study

< interesting

< but to answer your question: yes you should be worried

< the strats practical is essentially

< let's just say that it's the key to reputation, especially if

< well. I don't want to be gauche.

>I see.

< you and I have something in common, herr von leigh

< in any event, try to do your best at strats

< being successful and hated is still a world better than being terrible and hated

< and it would be shameful for me for my mentee to crash and burn immediately

>I'm not here to play power games

< even if you don't want to, you are

< you don't have a choice

< I have to get to class

< good luck I guess

That had been a more pleasant interaction than Yang had been expecting, though it didn't fill him with confidence. He had to wonder what Eisenach thought they had in common. Maybe he also stood out like a sore thumb— Yang hadn't seen him in person, so he wouldn't be able to tell.

Regardless, Yang also had to get going to class. He stumbled into his first class about fifteen seconds late, having been unable to find the room. Everyone stared at him on his way in, which made him sweat and try to find an unobtrusive seat in the back. The professor ignored him, which at least was a relief.

The day didn't improve from there. All the first day classes passed in a blur, especially the last one, his afternoon class, because he hadn't eaten lunch. At least this first day was more concerned with passing out syllabi and going over course scope than it was about actually delivering information.

When he finally made it to the dining hall to try to get something to eat, he discovered the offerings to be very slim. Two in the afternoon was long past the acceptable lunch hour, so he was alone with just a cup of tea and a cold sandwich. Being alone was perfect, though, especially after feeling the animosity of his classmates during the day. Some of them were not hostile (Reuenthal stared at him a lot, which was somewhat unsettling but not dangerous feeling; Wahlen was nice enough; Bittenfeld acted the way he acted towards absolutely everybody;) but a lot of them very visibly couldn't stand him. Well, that was their problem, Yang supposed.

He did wonder what exactly he had gotten himself into, but when he looked around the empty dining hall, he decided that drinking tea and cracking open his history text to do the first reading were much more pleasant than being trapped in some kind of indentured servitude back on Phezzan. Only time would tell if it would stay that way.

All of Monday and Tuesday went by far too quickly, in a haze of theoretical classes, with Yang keeping entirely to himself. On Wednesday, though, Yang was faced with the class he was least looking forward to: the six hour long strats practical. He had pressed Eisenach for more detail and been told the following information: every student at the academy took a strats practical, but students in military history, administration, and engineering were all supposed to only have three hours a week of the course, not six; the strats practical was the subject that was most highly weighted when calculating rankings; and the class would alternate between pitting students against simulations and against each other.

Yang snuck into the room right before class started and found a seat that he calculated would put him the perfect distance from every other student, while not looking like he was intentionally avoiding anyone. The lecture hall was rather large, but the number of students who came in was only about thirty. The professor, a grey-haired man named Staden, stood at the front of the room, consulting a pocket watch for the optimal moment to begin class. Considering that there was a clock right on the wall to the left of the chalkboard, Yang thought the pocket watch was a little much.

Staden cleared his throat. "Welcome to your first class of the Strategic Warfare Practicum. I'm Captain Staden, your instructor for this course. We'll all be seeing quite a lot of each other, unless you drop rank severely. I run the top-level practicum for all four years of the SW cohort, as well as two sections for the engineering cohort.” 

Staden went on, explaining more about how the class would work, and Yang paid attention, taking notes. They would have theory for the first hour, then play some kind of war game for the rest of class, with a break for lunch in the middle. For homework, there was theory reading and an analysis postmortem of how their war game went. Staden was apparently a bit of a luddite, preferring not to use computer grading and simulations for most of their battles, instead assigning members of the class to moderate the war game. Nobody playing the game or moderating would be aware of who they were interacting with.

He was happy to learn that there would be upperclassmen watching the game moderators, to make sure that all orders were interpreted fairly and in a way that made sense. It seemed like this would be an interesting challenge, at the very least. Yang hoped that he would be selected to be in the game moderator group, because it seemed like the most interesting, though that would also mean that he would have to work with a partner.

Staden described the scenario. It was apparently based on a real place, an incredibly snowy planet just on the other side of the Iserlohn corridor on which the "rebel fleet" had been gunning it out with the imperial forces for years. The planet was completely inhospitable, but full of natural resources. The simulation would be of a land battle, which interested Yang as well. There was something very pure about space battles. There was little in the way of landscape to them, so much less of the battle depended on the universe itself, merely the people in it and the decisions they made. Perhaps the subtle complications of land battles were better suited to human evaluation than computer-automated scoring. 

Staden finished his lecture, and then each student was given a folded piece of paper that specified their role. Yang frowned when he realized he was going to actually be playing out the battle, and not being a moderator. He walked out of the lecture hall and took his assigned seat at one of the player stations, a little cubicle with a computer. He would type out his commands and receive information on the geography, troop movements, and reconnaissance through the computer-- it was easier that way than having couriers run messages back and forth to the GMs and other players in other rooms.

Yang was playing the attacking side, simulating the FPA. He tucked all his personal thoughts to the back of his mind and looked at the map. His base was on the far side of a mountain range, and his objective was to capture the rare metal mines on the other side of the range, protected by an imperial base. Ideally, he would want the mining equipment to be unharmed. At his disposal, he had a group of armored vehicles, a squadron of troops (with limited on-foot mobility, considering the blizzard climate), a limited amount of mobile artillery, and the stationary defenses of his base. There was no air support because the space above the planet was hotly contested and planes couldn't fly in the terrible weather. 

Yang leaned back in his chair and waited for the game to start, thinking over the situation. It seemed to him to be a stupid thing to fight over. Though the mine was useful, it definitely wasn't worth the lives of the soldiers on both sides who were fighting to the death over it. If he had been in command of the whole operation, he would have simply destroyed the mine, or indeed the whole barren planet, rather than having the other side endlessly want to contest it. Of course, that was outside the scope of this simulation.

A bell rang and the game began.

He typed a note to the GMs. "Where is the food supply coming from? Both sides."

A note came back from the GM quickly. "Your food supply is two months of dry rations stored underneath your base. You do not have intelligence on how the enemy or mine town is supplied."

Hm. So starving them out probably wouldn't be an option, if they were as prepared as he was. 

He consulted the map. His base was about five hundred kilometers distant from the other one, which would mean a difficult and plainly visible approach, if he were to just send out his armored vehicles. 

He typed a note to the GM, "Do I have cold weather birds for messages?" Radio was a problematic thing, easily intercepted or blocked by the enemy.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Functionally unlimited."

Excellent. He could at least send out one way communications and get some reconnaissance going.

"Eight tanks, four soldiers each, dispatch for reconnaissance only. Circle enemy base/mine to see what defenses are in rear. Bird communication only. Timestamp immediately."

"Acknowledged. En route."

He closed his eyes and thought for a minute. A frontal assault on the base would be ridiculous; there would be no way that he could win, unless the enemy had way fewer armored vehicles than he did for some reason.

A bell chimed, informing him that he had a message. "Your base security spotted two enemy vehicles at this position." A marker lit up on the map.

Yang tapped his chin with his pen, then typed back. "Do not engage, but one tank follow at distance for observation. Send bird message back if enemy encampment encountered." Just in case, he wanted to make sure that the enemy wasn't camped out near him. For all he knew, the enemy could be intending to attack his base. It would not be unreasonable to expect that his opponent had been given a different objective than to simply defend his base, after all. 

It would be advantageous for him if the enemy did try to attack him at his base, actually. That way, he could wipe out a section of their forces and head off himself while their base was weakly defended. But he doubted his opponent would be so stupid. What he needed to do was find a way to draw the enemy out of their base, winnow down their numbers without losing any of his tanks, then charge in.

That was tricky. The only thing that he could imagine would tempt the enemy to leave their base would be the sight of his own tanks on the horizon, but that would mean putting his own people in danger.

They weren't real, Yang reminded himself.

"Weather forecast for the next week?" Yang asked the GMs.

He received the information that a heavy blizzard would be descending on the area three days from now, but only the usual light snow before and after. Okay, maybe that was something that he could work with. Limited visibility could be useful to an attacker.

"Do I have landmines available?" Yang asked.

"Yes."

"Do they have to be deployed by hand? Or can they be aerially dropped?" A plan was forming in his mind, though he didn't like it. If the soldiers involved in it were real, and not just numbers sliding around a computer screen, he never would have seriously considered it, but they were just numbers, so he was free to be as creative as he could.

This answer took a longer than usual time to come back. The GMs were perhaps consulting one of the upperclassmen. "They must be deployed by hand."

Yang sighed, pulling his legs up to his chest and pressing them against the edge of the desk. He tapped out his next message. "Any news from my scouts?" It was a silly question to ask, considering that the timer had not yet advanced enough for the scouts to have seen anything and sent back a message. They wouldn't waste their limited birds on just reporting their position, unless there was something to actually say.

"Impatience is a sin, Hank von Leigh," Yang muttered to himself.

The fact that the timer was advancing relatively slowly made Yang worry that his opponent, whoever his opponent was, was doing something complicated that was absorbing the GMs' attention. Or maybe time just always advanced slowly early in these simulations as everyone set up their starting positions.

“Does the mine connect to the enemy base in any way? Specifically underground?” Yang asked.

“You do not have that information.”

Hm. Interesting. He would assume it was a yes, though. If he were the enemy commander, he would want a way to quickly enter the mine, should it be invaded. And if he were a civilian mine worker, he would want an ability to take refuge in the base, in that same situation.

“Do I have the ability to map underground passages if I can approach close enough?”

“No.”

The GM sent another message. “Your scout following the enemy’s scout has reported back that the enemy vehicles are proceeding directly to the enemy base.”

He had a thought. “Are messages being sent to me encrypted?”

“Yes.”

He let a little more time pass, hoping to hear back from the very first scouts he had sent out, the ones who were scoping out the enemy base. The report came back and looked pretty much as Yang had expected. There was a description of patrolling tanks, estimated troop strength, base defenses, et cetera. He was concerned most with the heavy artillery that was mounted on the base; his armored vehicles would be no match for it, if they came too close. Again, he wanted this to be a tank battle, but as little of one as possible. 

He checked the time again, and then gave his orders. A lot of his plan relied on his opponent being somewhat stupid, or at least thinking that Yang was being stupid. He had to make sure that this was not a habit that he should get into, especially if he won, potentially underestimating the enemy. But if this was a real fight, well, Yang would not have wanted to be fighting it. He wouldn’t have kept a useless base on this planet. He wouldn’t try to seize the enemy’s well defended base. But a simulation was a simulation, so he had to act within the narrow lane that was being carved out for him.

A bell sounded and his computer screen went dark. All around him, his fellow students were stretching and standing.

“How’s it going?” a blonde haired guy asked the person next to him. Yang thought his name might be Kristoff von Stockhausen or something like that. He was going to have to do a better job of keeping everybody straight.

“Don’t talk about it,” came the sharp voice of one of the upperclassmen at the front of the room, who had been silently proctoring. “You have forty five minutes for lunch. Get back on time, or the simulation will restart without you, and you’ll end up losing.”

Yang trooped outside, grateful for the break. He pulled a sandwich from his bag, one that he had got from the cafeteria before the start of class, and sat down on the green lawn to eat. The sun was high and hot overhead, a sharp contrast to the harsh winter he had spent the morning imagining. His classmates milled around or left to get lunch in the cafeteria, all ignoring him, though not without first looking directly at him. 

When he finished his sandwich, he lay back on the grass, arms underneath his head, and shut his eyes. There was a state right on the edge of falling asleep where he did his best thinking, he believed.

His peace didn’t last for too long, though, because as his classmates began to return from lunch, someone walked up to where Yang was laying, casting a shade over his face. Yang resisted the urge to open his eyes and see who it was. If he pretended to be asleep, maybe they would go away.

“Hey, von Leigh, what role are you playing?” It was the voice of von Deitch, who was number five, if Yang recalled correctly.

“It would be breaking the rules of the game for me to talk about it,” Yang said without opening his eyes. “I’d prefer not to develop a reputation as a cheater on my very first day.”

Deitch snorted. “But not the second?”

“Not then, either, but it’s the first day I’m worrying about right this moment.”

“You don’t win battles by not thinking about the long game.” That wasn’t Deitch’s voice, it was Gautier’s, the person directly behind Yang in the rankings. He didn’t like this.

“Luckily, this is school and not an actual war,” Yang said. “I can afford to take things one day at a time.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” Gautier said. “All the easier for me to take your spot.”

Yang still wasn’t opening his eyes. “You can have it. I’m not attached to the number.”

“Is there something you are attached to?” Deitch asked.

“Why in the world would I tell you that?” Yang asked.

“What kind of accent do you have?” Deitch pressed. “You don’t come from Odin.”

“I’m from Phezzan.” 

“A Phezzani with no ambition to be at the top,” Gautier said. “That seems like a wrong combination if I’ve ever heard one.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It should make beating you easier,” Gautier said. “But it hardly feels like a fair contest.”

“It’s fair, as long as you don’t go talking about the game over lunch break,” Yang said with a smile. He could practically feel the glare that he imagined was on Gautier’s face. 

“We’ll see who’s on top at the end of the day.” 

"Sure. Good luck," Yang said. He kept his voice mild, but that didn't stop either Gautier or Deitch from giving his bag a sharp kick, sending its open contents spilling out. Yang tried not to flinch and was just glad that the kick had been at the bag rather than at him. He didn't open his eyes until they were gone; he waited for the sound of Gautier and Deitch's footsteps to fade before he sat up and collected his things.

When he did look around finally, he saw that the whole situation had been observed. That man Reuenthal was watching him again, leaning against the building, arms folded loosely across his chest. Yang met his stare, that time, and Reuenthal didn't back down, just put that weird half smile on his face. It was impossible to interpret. Yang stood, nodded at him, then picked up his bag and went back inside to take his place at his computer terminal.

Compared to interactions with his classmates, the simulation felt clear and easy to understand. Enough time had passed in game that the blizzard was going to descend on the area the next day, so Yang's plan went into action.

He sent out about half of his total tanks (he wanted to leave his own base defended) and all of his mobile artillery, positioning them just out of observational range of the enemy base. He also made the decision to move his command post with the tanks, which cut down significantly on the amount of information he was receiving (none from the base), but allowed him to change his plan on the fly, rather than hoping that his orders would be executed and succeed. By time they arrived in their positions near the enemy base, the blizzard was in full force. He then ordered them to creep forward in the low visibility conditions, and had soldiers lay land mines in strategic positions around all the entrances and fields around the base and mine. Not too close to the entrances— he didn't want to give the game up immediately— but close enough that he might be able to take out a good number of the enemy vehicles without firing a shot.

He hoped that the blizzard snow would cover up all evidence of the mines and would stop his soldiers from being seen. None of them reported back that they had been attacked (though several suffered frostbite and two went missing), so Yang was hopeful that they had not been seen. Before the blizzard ended, he pulled his tanks back out of the enemy's detection range. It was a hasty maneuver, but he hoped that it would work.

Then he further split his force, deciding that a quarter were going to go far out of their way and approach the mine from the opposite direction, hopefully after Yang had already taken out as much of the base defenses as he could with the force he retained. He didn't like splitting his forces, but he thought that a secondary prong of attack coming later might at least fluster the enemy commander. If flustering was all he could get, he would take it.

As the blizzard began to clear, being replaced with the usual windy snowfall of the planet, Yang began to charge his tanks in, aiming directly for the main entrance of the enemy base, ordering them to halt if they came close enough to set up their mobile artillery and begin shelling the base. He wished he had a cup of tea. Waiting for the GM to report the enemy's actions to him was making him twitchy. Yang closed his eyes, and only opened them when he heard the message chime.

"You are taking artillery fire from the enemy's base defenses. Current losses are—"

"Set up mobile artillery, target base defenses, have main body of tanks move back out of range of enemy guns." He needed to draw the enemy tanks out of their hole, which would only happen if they felt they were about to be overrun, which would only happen if he was able to take out enough of the base's artillery to approach safely. His mobile units were probably less powerful and fewer in number than the base's stationary defenses, but if he could take out enough of them... He drummed his fingers on the table. Next Wednesday, he would bring himself a thermos of tea, he decided. That would make this more pleasant. The TA could yell at him for liquids in the computer lab, but he wouldn't care.

"Enemy artillery operation has been reduced by 60%. You have three mobile artillery units remaining."

Well. Enough was enough. Yang ordered his tanks back in, charging in a wide half encircling formation around the main entrance of the enemy base. It would still take them a while to arrive, but he hoped that—

"Enemy tanks are emerging from base. Observed at these positions." The map view changed, showing dots for the observed tanks, as well as his own positions. Yes. Now, just a little further...

The enemy tanks entered the minefield. He ordered his tanks to open fire and his artillery to switch to shelling the approaching vehicles. If he could disguise any damage to enemy tanks as coming from projectiles rather than mines, even if just for a minute, that would allow even more tanks to muddle their way into his minefield, where they would ether be forced to retreat exactly along the path they had come out in, remain stationary targets, or charge forward and risk disaster.

Two things became clear immediately: it was the GMs, acting out the role as soldiers, who were not accurately simulating the battlefield situation; and the enemy commander knew exactly how to reorganize himself. Both of these things were bad for Yang. If the GMs weren't taking into account the battlefield confusion that Yang had hoped to create with his mines, and were instead allowing the enemy commander to reorganize immediately, his plan was less useful than he had hoped. And, if the enemy commander knew what he was doing, that also meant that Yang was not likely to win this engagement.

He had had a little bit of an advantage: the opening that his landmines created did give him some time to fire upon the enemy as they rearranged their battle lines and were forced to fire at the ground in front of them to clear a safe path towards Yang's tanks. But then the whole force of the base was coming out towards Yang, and it turned into a brutal struggle.

His half encirclement would be easily broken through, splitting his forces, so Yang had to waste time reorganizing into a tighter formation. Then it was the haze of battlefield confusion, and Yang did his best to get in between the enemy tanks and their base, in order to cut them off from retreating. While he succeeded at that, his numbers (small to begin with) were being whittled away. Since he had wormed his way right up to the base entrance, he had some soldiers exit their tanks and enter the enemy base. He lost contact with them after that, but he hoped the GMs would give them at least a fighting chance at taking the control room and maybe capturing the enemy commander.

It was a vicious fight, and it lasted a long time. Glancing at the real clock on the wall, Yang could see that they were coming right up on the end of class time, and most of his classmates had left already, having finished their battles one way or another. But Yang was deep into this fantasy battle, knuckles white as he tapped out commands to his imaginary troops. He was losing, he could tell just by the bare numbers, but he wasn't going to give up.

A message came from the GM. "Your detached force has breached the mine's defenses."

Yang let out a little laugh. So they hadn't been wiped out. That was a pleasant surprise.

But then a second note from the GM. "Base defenses are firing on the mine."

Ah, well, there went Yang's chance of actual victory. If the mine was ruined, he had failed. He should have taken out all of the base artillery, and maybe taken into account that there had to be some kind of self-destruct function underneath the mine, simply to stop him from getting control of it. In order to actually win, he would have had to force the enemy commander to surrender, which was not going to happen. His opponent was smart, from the way he moved his tanks, and proud, from the way he'd rather force a draw than give up. Would that translate to the actual battlefield, he wondered, when real people's lives were on the line, and not just numbers on paper?

Yang let out a little half laugh. If there was no win condition anymore, he might as well save as much of his forces as he could. Waste not, want not. He ordered his forces to withdraw, breaking through the encirclement and rejoining up away from the enemy base.

"@GMs. I'm retreating— there's no more win condition for me since the mine was destroyed. You can end the game now."

He got up from his chair with a yawn and a stretch. The proctoring TA gave him a flat and annoyed look. "I was hoping to get out of here early," he said.

"Sorry," Yang said with an apologetic smile. He was the last student in the room.

"Yeah, don't drag things out for so long next week. Try to win or lose quickly, okay?"

"I will do my best."

Outside the room, Yang stood alone in the hallway for a moment, leaning his head back against the stone wall and taking a few deep breaths. His heart was beating unexpectedly fast, and he felt as though he had been running all day. The sudden removal of tension was like ice water pouring through his arms and legs, waking him up and exhausting him all at once.

A door creaked open down the hall, and Reuenthal stepped out. He seemed relaxed, with that odd, tight smile on his face and his hands held behind his back. So, he had been playing against the number one.

"Hey, Reuenthal," Yang said, keeping his tone light. "Good game." He wanted to strike the delicate balance between Reuenthal not thinking that he was mocking him, and Reuenthal knowing that Yang wasn't angry at having lost.

Reuenthal paused, then turned and came towards Yang, who stiffened unintentionally. Reuenthal stuck out his hand. "Good game," he said.

They shook hands. Reuenthal had long, slender fingers, and his hands were cold as ice. Yang felt soft and sweaty in comparison. The intense and prolonged eye contact made Yang uncomfortable, but he wasn't going to back down here.

"I look forward to our rematch," Reuenthal said finally, then dropped his hand.

Yang rubbed the back of his head. "We'll have to play other people before we match each other again. And by then I'm sure I will have lost my number two spot."

"Oh?"

"I'm not that invested."

"Is that why you retreated right as the GM was telling me the doors to my command center were being fired on?"

Yang shrugged. "I had already lost at that point. You could have wiped out my tanks if I'd stayed much longer, and then everyone left would have been stranded, and..." He shook his head. "It was a pointless battle anyway. The planet isn't worth the effort."

"In a sense." Reuenthal was contemplative.

"What do you mean?"

"You should decide what level you're playing the game on, von Leigh." And then Reuenthal was off, headed down the hallway, leaving Yang feeling much more confused than he had been when he started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think I'm being stupid when writing strategy shit. That's totally possible. Feel free to yell at me.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Read my original science fiction for more ridiculous battle scenes: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	4. Seig St. Sebastian!

_ October, 475 IC, Odin _

After nearly three months of school, Yang was feeling like he had his feet under him, but only barely. His schedule was punishing, and he hadn't made any friends, so he spent much of his time in his room, endlessly doing homework. It was unfortunate that he cared about the vast majority of his subjects and didn't have any classes that he could simply toss into the wind. He missed having math class simply for the ability to abandon math class. Aside from the heavy workload, he felt like he was doing well in his history classes, at least.

He had managed to retain his number two spot, somehow. Several Wednesdays in a row, he marched into the practicum fully intending to lose quickly and take a nap for the remainder of class, but then when he actually sat down at the computer, he discovered he was unable to type out commands that he knew would send him to a quick defeat. Instead, he found himself trying his best and berating himself for trying his best, every single second.

His classmates made sure that he heard them talking about him. They loudly discussed his tactics, his appearance, what they supposed his upbringing was, his lack of coordination in the weekend physical classes, and everything else. It was no secret that Yang's belongings disappeared when he left them unattended. He had to adopt unfortunate habits, such as bringing his bag with him to the bathroom.

One day, while Yang was eating his lonely late afternoon lunch, Wahlen found him in the empty dining hall, and, with a rather chagrined expression, handed him back the large thermos that had been stolen.

"Thanks." Yang tucked the banged up thermos back into his bag.

"I found it in the fountain," Wahlen said. "It looked like the one you had. Anyway, try to keep your stuff out of the pond."

Yang nodded, as though he could control that. "I will. Thanks again." Wahlen turned to go. "Hey, Wahlen, good luck tomorrow."

Wahlen laughed at that. "You beat me two weeks ago. I doubt we'll be going against each other again so soon."

"That doesn't mean I can't wish you luck against whoever you are playing."

"Good luck to you, too, then," Wahlen said, and left.

He could trust some of his classmates to treat him fairly, but others, not so much. This led to a constant balancing act during the Wednesday practicums. Although the players of each match were supposed to be secret, that didn't stop the GMs and opponents from trying to guess if they were playing against Yang, and then doing their best to sabotage him. Since all the game records and postmortems were public on the class intranet, people took to examining Yang's matches to see what his common moves were. When Yang discovered that people were doing this, he had to devise ever more convoluted countermeasures: contra-analyzing his classmates and pretending to be them during the matches. On one level, it was an interesting intellectual exercise, on the other, Yang felt as though it were leading him to waste his own time and abandon his principles. There were situations that he felt like he could have won easily, if he hadn't been forced to charge headlong in as he pretended to be Bittenfeld, for example.

Bittenfeld had one tactic, which was to charge directly into the thick of things, then use a terrible combination of micromanaging individual maneuvers and just plain hoping for the best. That said, it was easy to pretend to be Bittenfeld, but it was not so easy to win while pretending to be Bittenfeld. The fact that Bittenfeld himself retained his rank with this strategy seemed like some flavor of miracle.

Yang changed which students he was stealing from, and then switched back to playing as himself, just to vary things. If he could confuse people into not knowing when he was playing, that was the only way he could stop the game from getting rigged against himself.

Whenever it was his turn to be a game moderator, he was relieved. Even though he had to work with a partner (with various degrees of cooperation), it was far less stressful than being an actual player. And he liked the experience of imagining how each player's actions would influence the world, thinking through the consequences and moving the clock forward.

After several weeks of intense matches, Yang finally got to play as GM again, which was nice, but what was less nice was the email that he found waiting for him on his computer when he made a tactical retreat to his dorm room. The email started out well, saying that he was excused from the mandatory Saturday physicals class, but the reason he was excused from it was because the top ten students from each class were being invited to breakfast and a horseback hunt at Neue Sanssouci, the seat of the Imperial Court.

Several thoughts jumped into his head all at once.

First: words could not express how little he wanted to be anywhere near Kaiser Friedrich IV. Though it seemed unlikely that the Kaiser would make an appearance to greet lowly Academy students, the fact that they had been invited to the grounds was enough to make Yang deeply uncomfortable.

Second: Yang had no idea how to ride a horse. He had only even seen a horse in person for the first time after coming to Odin. There were stables on the IOA grounds, but since Yang had no interest in learning to ride, and no time even if he had the interest, he had avoided them. Why the Empire was so obsessed with the horse and carriage when cars and even bicycles existed was completely beyond him.

Third: the idea of being let loose in the woods with his classmates sounded like it would entail nothing but embarrassment for him.

Fourth: the entire concept of hunting for sport.

Fifth: on the bright side, since all the top upperclassmen had been invited as well, maybe he would finally get to lay eyes on his mysterious mentor, Eisenach.

Sixth: at least he was escaping Saturday physical.

Seventh: how early did he have to be awake, in order to be at Neue Sanssouci for breakfast?

He resigned himself to going, as it felt unavoidable. One did not refuse a direct invitation from the Kaiser. To prepare himself, Yang researched as much as he could about how to ride a horse. Certainly, reading a set of instructions wasn't going to help him do it in person, but it was better than having no ideas whatsoever.

Saturday came, and with it, the low blustery winds of October in this part of Odin were in full force, pushing heavy grey clouds in front of the late-rising sun. Yang dressed in his nicer uniform, then joined up with his classmates at the Academy gates, where they waited for the bus that had been chartered. While he waited, Yang inspected the upperclassmen, who ignored all the freshmen (not just him) as though they were lower life forms.

Yang wanted to know if Eisenach was here, so he texted his mentor, then looked around to see if anyone pulled out their phone to respond.

> are you here?

Eisenach responded immediately.

< I'm ignoring you

< do not come talk to me

Yang looked around to see where Eisenach was. There was only one real candidate— a broad shouldered man with dark red, slicked back hair who was making a show of putting his phone in his pocket. He met Yang's eyes, gave a cheeky half-salute, then ignored Yang, as he had said he would.

Identifying his mentor, finally, gave Yang more questions than answers. He had definitely seen Eisenach around campus before, but the man had never once attempted to speak with him in person. He didn't stand out at all. There were plenty of tall, broad redheads at the IOA, so Yang had to wonder what exactly Eisenach had meant when he said they had something in common.

It would have to be a mystery he solved on another day, because the bus pulled up then, and everyone climbed aboard. Yang ended up seated next to Ansbach, who detested him, so there would be no conversation from that end.

They arrived at Neue Sanssouci after about an hour's ride and were quickly ushered in groups of six into horse drawn carriages that took them up to the palace proper. Motor vehicles were not allowed on the court grounds. The place was beautiful, even in the chill of autumn. All the grounds were carefully tended, statues depicting the gods or various heroes of the empire dotted the paths, and everywhere Yang looked there was some carefully cultivated detail—ornate flower beds, clever arrangements of lights, bushes carved into the shapes of animals. Tension grew among the students as they came closer to the palace itself. Some smoothed back their hair, others fussed with their uniforms. Yang tried to maintain his usual air of detached nonchalance, but he found it difficult, since his thoughts kept revolving around the wrongness of the situation.

How did you get here, Yang Wen-li? He asked himself.

And then like a blur they were in the main hall, standing in four lines by year and rank. Reuenthal was next to him, standing perfectly still, for once not staring Yang down. In front of him was Eisenach's broad back.

Kaiser Friedrich IV entered the room at the front as all of the students snapped into a salute. Attendants followed behind the Kaiser, one holding a notebook to record anything that he had to say. The Kaiser was old, with a wrinkled face and white hair, but still hale looking. He didn't seem enthusiastic as he strode towards the assembled students, but he did study them with a keen eye.

"You're all seniors this year?" he asked the front row.

"Yes, Mein Kaiser," said the first student in the row, obviously the spokesperson for the entire senior class.

"Good, good. I hope to see you all doing great things within the next few years." He stopped in front of one of the seniors. "Arleheim, please give your father my condolences on the passing of your mother."

"I will, Mein Kaiser," a dark haired man said. "Thank you."

The Kaiser stopped in front of the juniors and sophomores, as well, giving them perfunctory greetings and inquiring about their status. Then he came to the freshmen.

"So, you're the new students," the Kaiser said.

"Yes, sir," Reuenthal said.

"I hope to see you all return here next year."

"We will, sir."

"Excellent." Friedrich paused and studied Reuenthal more closely. "What's your name?"

"Oskar von Reuenthal, sir."

"Oh, you're from Count Marbach's family. He didn't tell me that you were in the Academy. I will have to congratulate him on having a successful grandson."

"Thank you, sir."

Yang was standing stiffly, staring straight ahead and trying to ignore the conversation happening next to him. Unfortunately, this became impossible when Friedrich turned to him. "What is your name?"

"Hank von Leigh, sir," Yang said, not meeting the Kaiser's eyes.

"Von Leigh...?" His voice held a note of confusion. "Where are you from, von Leigh?"

"Phezzan-land, sir."

"Hm. I'm glad to hear that Phezzan is still producing people of worth to the fatherland."

"Thank you, sir." And that was the end of the conversation. The Kaiser turned away. Yang could have collapsed in relief, but he had to salute again with all the students. 

Apparently, that short meeting with the Kaiser had been all that they were going to get from anyone important, because then they were escorted to a dining area and treated to a much nicer breakfast than was ever served at the IOA. It might have been a nice treat, if Yang hadn't been forcibly reminded that he was working for the Kaiser. 

Yang was next to Bittenfeld at the table, who was as rowdy as ever. He poked Yang in the shoulder at one point and said, "Glad to hear that you're of worth to the fatherland, von Leigh."

"I'm sure you are as well," Yang said with a half smile, trying to be gracious to Bittenfeld and deflect attention from himself at the same time. Bittenfeld wasn't being malicious, but the fact that Yang had been singled out by the Kaiser had riled up some of the students who didn't like him. Ansbach, Gautier, and Deitch were the leaders of that crew, though it seemed that more than half the class agreed with them, just in a more quiet way.

"And hey, Reuenthal, what are you doing here if you're a count's grandson?" Bittenfeld asked.

"Maternal grandfather. I don't inherit anything," Reuenthal said, taking a sip from his coffee. "It would suit you better to stay out of other people's family matters."

"I was just curious," Bittenfeld said with a huff, crossing his arms. "No need to be tetchy about it."

Reuenthal just smiled thinly. It was obviously a sore subject for him.

Yang was dreading the end of breakfast and the start of the hunt. It was deer season, apparently. The only saving grace of this day was that his performance wouldn't be graded in any way. Not that he cared about rank, but still.

Most of the others were excited, and jostled about in the stables trying to pick the horse they thought would be best. Yang hung back, waiting until everyone else had chosen. He was tempted to ask the stablehands which horse had the easiest temperament, but realized that would be overheard and picked up on by his classmates. Eventually, through process of elimination, he was left with an old, dappled grey mare who lipped at his hand when he pet her nose. Nice horse. Perfect. Already saddled so that he didn't have to do it.

It took him long enough to choose and get situated that most people had already gone off into the hunting grounds by time he got moving, holding the bow he had been given loosely in his lap and clutching the reins for dear life. He felt wobbly on top of the horse, didn't want her to go faster, but needed her to in order to catch up with the others.

"Come on, Wen-li," he muttered under his breath. "Let's go."

There was a path that he followed into the forest, having seen his classmates vanish there. The whole place was filled with the bright yellow leaves of autumn, and the wind rattled them so severely that he could barely hear the excited shouts of his classmates up ahead. At least now that he was in the forest, he could pretend like he was doing something.

Tentatively, he practiced drawing back the string of his bow. It was far heavier than he had expected, and when he let go of the string, his left arm felt the shock and the bow whacked him in the face so hard that he almost fell off his horse. The horse made an annoyed sound at the ruckus on her back, and Yang awkwardly patted her neck. Okay, no using the bow, then. He could just pretend to enjoy this horse ride in the forest, right? Say he was looking for deer, didn't find any, and then when it was done go back in and congratulate his classmates on whatever they did catch. Sure. That was a plan.

The path petered out into nothingness, but there wasn't much underbrush and the trees were pretty far apart, so Yang just trusted his horse to go wherever. He wasn't that concerned, and actually had a surprisingly peaceful twenty or so minutes wandering deeper into the forest.

He heard the sound of hoofbeats near him, and craned his neck to see who was around. He couldn't quite catch a glimpse of the person-- no, people-- off in the forest. They were close by, though, and coming closer. Should he call out to them? They weren't making much sound. Maybe they had spotted a deer that they were chasing. A cloud moved in front of the sun, and the whole forest grew what felt like several degrees colder and several shades dimmer.

Suddenly feeling anxious, Yang spurred his horse into a trot, holding the reins with one hand and the pommel of his saddle with the other, jolting up and down with the horse's movements. The hoofbeats grew closer, then seemed to split up, moving around him. This confirmed in his mind the bad feeling he had gotten a moment ago. He had spent enough time in the SW practicum that watching forces split up to encircle someone gave him the shivers.

Unfortunately, Yang couldn't exactly go faster without risking falling off his horse. He was barely holding on as it was. He tried to weave his way through the trees, but he didn't have that much control over his direction, and his pursuers were getting closer and closer. He was hemmed in on three sides, and he was far slower than they were.

If his heart hadn't been beating in his throat, he would have laughed at the thought of him losing a cavalry battle. That certainly wasn't something they practiced in the practicum. It was right out of a history textbook. 

He heard the arrow before he felt it, the soft whir of it flying through the air, then the explosive pain of it, catching him in his left thigh. His horse reared; he couldn't hold on; he tumbled off backwards and sideways, miraculously managing to not hit his head. His horse galloped off without him, and so did his invisible attackers.

His thoughts were in slow motion as he dragged himself up into a sitting position in the damp leaf litter on the forest floor, the pain in his leg screaming. His thoughts centered on it, then drifted away, then re-centered. 

The arrow was going all the way through his thigh, right through the fleshiest part. The tip must have hit his horse, too, causing it to jump and topple him off. Yang pressed his fingertips around the wound, came away with a copious amount of blood. The sight made him feel like he was going to pass out, but that wouldn't be good. Could he stand? Maybe.

He dragged himself, scooting backwards with his hands, towards a tree, tried to use it to hoist himself upwards, failed. The shaft of the arrow seemed to be impeding his movements. He pressed the top and bottom of the wound. Could he pull it out? Maybe.

Then he heard hoofbeats again, coming from in front of him. He tensed, but he had no recourse if someone was coming back to make sure he was dead. His own bow and arrow had vanished with his horse, even if he had known how to use them. Yang pressed his back to the tree he was leaning against, as though that could save him. Maybe if he pulled out the arrow quickly, he could run. He put his hand on the shaft of it, winced hard at the pain that even that small movement brought, closed his eyes, then--

"If you want to bleed to death, you'll pull that out," Reuenthal said. Yang opened his eyes. Reuenthal was sitting on his horse, coal black, looking as nonchalant as ever.

"I see you've come to gloat too," Yang huffed, but dropped his hand from the arrow in his leg.

Reuenthal swung himself off his horse easily, as though he had years of practice. Grandson of a count. Probably he did.

"Who shot you?" he asked.

"Didn't see," Yang said. He closed his eyes again and leaned his head back against the tree. He felt, rather than heard or saw, Reuenthal come up next to him and crouch down. He picked up Yang's hand and moved it away from the wound, investigating it with his own deft fingers.

“You’re a regular Saint Sebastian,” Reuenthal said.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Yang opened his eyes then. Reuenthal reached into his pocket and retrieved a pocket knife. He flipped it open. “I’m going to cut this off. Hold still.” 

Yang tensed. Reuenthal held the shaft of the arrow still with one hand and cracked the knife through it with the other. The feathered end fell away, leaving only a nub sticking out of Yang’s skin.

“Do I need a tourniquet?” Yang asked, his breath coming shallowly.

Reuenthal pulled off his jacket, leaving him in his white dress shirt, then rolled it up, wrapped it around the upper part of Yang’s leg, and tied it painfully tightly. “Ow,” Yang complained, though it was silly to whine about a tourniquet when the puncture wound was more pressing. 

“The medicine is not worse than the malady,” Reuenthal said. “Can you stand?” He stood himself, then reached a hand out to Yang, who leaned heavily on it as he struggled to get his one good leg underneath himself. As soon as he was upright, he felt the blood leave his head, and he almost passed out. Reuenthal wedged himself underneath Yang’s shoulder and supported him as he hobbled forward. “Where did your horse go?” Reuenthal asked.

“Does it look like I know the answer to that question?” He was being unnecessarily rude to his rescuer, and in the more rational, less consumed by pain, part of his brain, he hoped Reuenthal wouldn’t hold it against him.

“Up,” Reuenthal said, then lifted Yang until he had one foot in the stirrup of the black horse, his injured leg hitting the saddle hard. The pain made Yang’s vision black out for a second, and when he came to, he was being held upright by Reuenthal, both hands on the side of his chest. “Do I need to tie you to the horse?” 

“No,” Yang gasped. “I’m fine.”

“Hah. Scoot forward.” Yang could not do that, but it didn’t seem to matter to Reuenthal, who hopped up behind him on the horse anyway. Yang heard his breathing in his ear, felt one of his arms wrap around his midsection. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this, but I think that it’s better than having you walk out.” 

“‘S fine,” Yang said, extremely woozy. “I’ll try not to fall off on you.”

“I’ll ride gently, then.” It seemed to Yang, though, that the way the horse moved as Reuenthal spurred it forward was anything but gentle. Every movement sent a spike of pain right up through his spine, and it was really only Reuenthal’s arm around his waist that kept him on the horse and upright.

They made it out of the forest, and right on the edge encountered Wahlen and Bittenfeld, standing next to their horses and drinking from canteens. Bittenfeld let out a wolf whistle when Yang and Reuenthal emerged together. “Lose your horse, von Leigh?”

“Bittenfeld,” Reuenthal said, without a trace of humor or patience in his voice. “I would appreciate it if you could find a doctor, or summon an ambulance to the entrance.” He turned, which allowed Wahlen and Bittenfeld a view of his white dress shirt, which was at this point covered in Yang’s blood.

If there was one thing that Bittenfeld had to his credit, it was that he never wasted a moment in jumping into action. He processed the situation, lept onto his horse with ease, and was off at a gallop towards the main buildings of Neue Sanssouci. 

Wahlen came over. “What happened?” 

“I fell off my horse onto my quiver,” Yang muttered, barely conscious.

“Is that the story we’re sticking with?” Wahlen asked.

Reuenthal looked at Yang, then gave a sharp nod. Wahlen narrowed his eyes, but deferred to Reuenthal as the de facto leader in this situation. He held out his canteen to Yang, who took it and drank, spilling water down his front.

“Should we go to the entrance, or wait here for Bittenfeld to find a doctor?” Wahlen asked.

Wahlen’s phone rang in his pocket. He answered it. Yang tried to listen to what was being said, but his vision was growing greyer and fuzzier around the edges, and the canteen slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. He slid back involuntarily, directly onto Reuenthal’s chest, and from there lost consciousness at last.

* * *

Yang woke up feeling jostled, but in significantly less pain than he had been in before he passed out. He was in an ambulance, he thought, and his leg was cold-- someone had cut his pants off above the arrow wound. His arm felt suspiciously cold, as well, and he discovered that his jacket had been removed, his sleeve rolled up, and there was an IV in his arm. He looked around as the car bumped away from Neue Sanssouci, back towards the city proper. Reuenthal was sitting next to him, arms crossed and leaning against the wall, and there was a doctor with the Goldenbaum crest on his jacket, and several nurses.

“Hnng,” Yang managed to say, to let everyone know he was conscious.

“Eloquent as ever, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said. “We’re on the way to the hospital.”

“How long?” he asked.

“You’re not going to have a better time once we get there. You might as well go back to sleep.”

“Fine.” If Reuenthal wasn’t going to be helpful, Yang was going to ignore him. He pressed his head back into the pillow, then covered his eyes with his free arm, draping it over his face. He might have been imagining it, but he thought that he heard Reuenthal chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People who have seen the entire OVA will probably find this chapter darkly amusing for several reasons.
> 
> Saint Sebastian is notoriously a gay icon. By that, I mean that gay people look at icons of him and say, "Yeah." There's an excellent Daniel Mallory Ortberg article (The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian, In Ascending Order Of Sexiness And Descending Order Of Actual Martyring) that is worth checking out for more context here.
> 
> Of course, though, I'm also referencing the Mountain Goats' song, "Hail Saint Sebastian", which is worth a listen.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Read my original science fiction for absolutely zero horseback riding scenes: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	5. Two Men with the Wrong Kind of Ambitions

_ October, 475 IC, Odin _

It was an obvious lie, but Reuenthal delivered it with such flat consistency that no one tried to find an alternate explanation for how exactly Hank von Leigh had ended up with an arrow through his thigh. If he said he had fallen off his horse while trying to get an arrow from his quiver, well, he had an arrow wound, and bruises all over his back from falling, though they didn't exactly match that description. But the Kaiser's personal doctor, who had accompanied Yang to the hospital, was nothing if not chosen for his discretion.

Yang was out of the hospital by that night, having needed minor surgery to remove the arrow and close the wound. Modern medicine made quick work of that kind of thing, for which Yang was grateful. He was dismissed with antibiotics and crutches, to be used until his stitches came out.

Reuenthal had stayed at the hospital with him all day, though he had been told to remain in the waiting room rather than right next to Yang while he was being treated. When Yang hobbled out on his crutches finally, he was surprised to still see Reuenthal waiting there for him. He looked both out of place and weirdly regal, sitting with his long legs crossed in the plastic hospital chair. He hadn't changed clothes, so his white shirt was still covered in Yang's blood. Yang himself had been given a fresh outfit by the hospital, so he was annoyed on Reuenthal's behalf that no one had offered him the same courtesy. Then again, Reuenthal probably looked and felt more natural in uniform, even a bloody one, than he would in the hospital sweatpants and tee shirt that Yang was wearing. Yang didn't know why he had that impression, but it was an unshakeable one.

Reuenthal stood when he saw Yang enter the waiting room. "Are you free?" he asked.

"If you're asking if I've been discharged, yes."

"I'll call us a car."

They left the bright hospital waiting room, Reuenthal carrying Yang's belongings, and Reuenthal flagged down a taxi that would take them back to the IOA. It was a chilly night, and Yang shivered when the wind blew past them as they stood on the side of the road. Reuenthal seemed unaffected by the temperature.

The taxi pulled up and they sat inside. At first, they were silent on the ride, but Yang decided he couldn't let the events of the day go unaddressed.

"I'm sorry for making you waste your Saturday," Yang said finally.

"On the contrary," Reuenthal said, "I'm grateful that your little accident allowed me to leave the party early. Sitting in a waiting room for a few hours is a small price to pay."

"You weren't enjoying it?"

Reuenthal made a noise that was halfway between agreement and disengagement. Perhaps he just didn't want to talk about it in the taxi. He was being rather circumspect in his answers.

"Regardless," Yang said. "I'm grateful for your help."

"You're welcome."

They made it back to the IOA without further conversation, and then slowly walked to the dorms. Reuenthal continued to stick around, even as Yang fumbled with his keys to open his bedroom door. When Yang pushed the door open, Reuenthal narrowed his eyes. "Did someone break in?"

"What?" Yang asked. His room looked exactly like it always did—unmade bed, old school papers everywhere, books open for reference on every available surface, uniforms on the floor, trash can filled to the brim, closet door half open.

"I see. You just live like this."

Yang did not dignify that with a response, just leaned heavily on one crutch as he took his belongings from Reuenthal. "I guess I need to buy a new dress uniform," he muttered. "Sorry yours got ruined, too."

"It's fine." Reuenthal seemed reluctant to leave. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm fine," Yang said. "You probably don't want to be seen with me any more than you already have been. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit of a pariah."

"A wolf should not be so concerned with the opinions of sheep."

Yang smiled. "I think it's less the sheep, and more the hunters with bows and arrows that we need to be concerned with, in this particular situation."

"You should make more of an effort in the weekend physicals. And maybe take a night physical class, too. Then things like this would be less likely to happen."

"Reuenthal, I don't know if you know this, but I have a thirty class-hour schedule. I do not have time to sleep, let alone go take an archery class."

"Archery wasn't exactly what I was suggesting. Come to hand-to-hand with me. Tuesdays and Thursdays at six. I'm sure you can spare four hours a week."

"What good would it do me?"

"It might save your life, getting more coordinated."

"We're studying to be officers, right?"

It had been a rhetorical question, but Reuenthal answered, "Yes."

"The minute that an officer needs to engage in hand-to-hand combat, the battle is already lost."

"Not everything that happens in life can be accurately simulated in the practicums, von Leigh."

Yang sighed. "Maybe when my leg heals."

"I'll hold you to that."

"Why do you have such an interest in me?" Yang asked. He was feeling bold—maybe it was the pain medicine or blood loss. "You've been staring at me since the first day we arrived."

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. "So has everyone else."

"You know what I mean."

"I'm sure I do not." The smile on his face indicated that he did. "But isn't it only natural for me to have an interest in my direct competition?"

"I don't care about rank."

"You say that, and yet you stay number two."

"Rank doesn't mean anything. Not everything worthwhile about a person as a leader can be summed up in a number. Bittenfeld will be a better commander than I will— he has the right kind of charisma."

"Oh? Are you saying I should be jealous of Bittenfeld?" Reuenthal's voice had an odd edge in it that Yang couldn't place, one that made him slightly uncomfortable, as though he had accidentally mis-stepped in this conversation.

"No." He shook his head. "I'm talking about my own personal failings."

"I don't think you being the way you are is a failing," Reuenthal said. He was still hovering in the doorway, and Yang wondered if it would be better to have this conversation with the door shut.

"Do you want to come in?" he asked.

Reuenthal was silent for a half second. "Maybe some other time, von Leigh," he said. Although it was a refusal, it was a warm one. "You should get some rest. I'll see you around."

"Sure. See you." Reuenthal strode off down the hallway, Yang watching him go before he closed the door.

* * *

The next day, at dinner, Yang was eating alone, stirring his tomato soup absentmindedly as he flipped through one of his history texts, jotting down notes for an essay that was due on Friday. He wasn't paying any attention to the room, and so when Reuenthal stood across the table from him and asked, "May I sit here?" Yang jumped.

"Oh, yeah, of course." He leaned over pulled some of his belongings out of the way so that there was space for Reuenthal to put his tray down. He also glanced around the room to see if anyone was watching what was happening, but, for once, no one seemed to be paying attention.

"What are you working on?" Reuenthal asked as he sat down.

"Foundations of Civilization homework," Yang said.

"Learning anything interesting?"

"Always." He tapped his pen on his paper. "You have any interest in history?"

"Some."

"What parts?"

"I'm more interested in individuals than I am in the ages they lived in."

Yang nodded slowly. "I don't know how much I hold to the great man theory of history." He meshed his hands together. "There's people moved by forces in society, and sometimes one gets pushed to the top enough that their name is attached to an era, but it's also the groundswelling of people moving below them that give them their real influence. It could be anyone lucky enough to fall into the right position."

"But aren't leaders essential for directing the energy of the people? If no one could hold them together, there would be no changes of age."

"It's a combination," Yang said. He took a breath as though he were about to launch into an explanation, then stopped. "Sorry, you shouldn't let me lecture you about things, I can just go on. I don't know how my dad put up with me."

"Considering I've barely heard you say anything before, it's a nice change."

"Speaking out in strats class is never a good idea," Yang said. For some reason, the half-compliment that Reuenthal had given him was making him feel flustered, like the ground of the conversation had fallen out from underneath him. Reuenthal had such an intense aura about him; that was it. Every graceful motion and word he said seemed to be imbued with a gravitas that Yang couldn't match. "What historical figures are you particularly interested in?" Yang asked, trying to get the conversation back to more familiar territory.

"Ones that I feel like I can understand," Reuenthal said.

"Such as?"

"Alexander the Great."

Yang laughed. "’One eye dark as night, one as blue as sky’?" he quoted.

Reuenthal smiled. "There are worse reasons to like a person."

"There are worse heroes to have."

"What about you, von Leigh? Who's your favorite?"

"I couldn't possibly say," Yang said. The answer that jumped immediately to his tongue was Ale Heinessen, but that wouldn't be an acceptable answer to give here in the IOA cafeteria.

"Rudolph von Goldenbaum?" Reuenthal asked, staring at Yang, who couldn't hide the momentary flicker of distaste that crossed his face. Reuenthal smiled, as though he had won a victory. "No?"

"I find it hard to believe that Kaiser Rudolph would have liked me, so he'll have to excuse me in Valhalla for any of my personal feelings."

"I understand," Reuenthal said, with a conviction that startled Yang. He seemed unwilling to say anything else on the matter, though, so they both ate their dinner in silence for a few minutes. Yang couldn't help but sneak glances at Reuenthal, trying to discern the reason for the other man's sudden change in attitude towards him.

Out of the blue, Reuenthal said, "You should be more ambitious." He looked across the table at Yang. "Other people will like you more if they see you have interests outside of history."

Yang hesitated a moment, picking up his teacup before answering. "I have ambitions."

"Oh? What kind?"

Yang hid a small smile behind his teacup. "The wrong kind."

When Reuenthal didn't say anything in response, Yang returned to his reading, though he could feel Reuenthal's eyes on him. After about half a minute of silent study, Reuenthal said, "I think I am a man with the wrong kind of ambitions, as well."

Yang didn't look up to meet Reuenthal's eyes, but he gave a quick nod.

* * *

_ December, 475 IC, Odin _

Yang's leg healed, and now that he had something approaching a friendship with Reuenthal, his life at the IOA took on a slightly different shape. Because Reuenthal was (for some reason) willing to be seen with him in public, that meant that the portion of the class who had already looked up to or liked Reuenthal now accepted Yang as an awkward attache to their dark haired number one. If it was odd that the number one and number two students were friends instead of fierce rivals, no one commented on it in his hearing. 

This meant that at Wednesday lunch and every day dinner, Yang now had company. There was always Reuenthal, often Bittenfeld or Wahlen, and occasionally other members of the class who wanted to speak with Reuenthal about something or other. 

Once, Eisenach, Yang's confusing mentor, had even shown up for dinner, sitting himself down across from Yang without saying a single word. He ate his pasta and meatballs while staring intently at Reuenthal for about a half hour, then got up and left. When Yang had tried to say hello, or engage him in conversation, Eisenach had stared at him to shut him up. It had been intensely odd. Later that night, Yang got a text from Eisenach.

< I like your number 1

< i think he and i have something in common.

< you should try harder to beat him, though

< and don't let him drag you into things you don't want

> are you vetting my friends now?

> and i told you, I don't care about rank

< just looking out for my mentee

< :)

As with everything relating to Eisenach, that raised more questions than answers. Still, part of him was glad that his mentor approved of Reuenthal. He didn't know why, but there was satisfaction in that knowledge. He didn't think it was because Reuenthal's relative glory as the top student in the freshman class reflected back on him-- he really didn't care about that-- but he couldn't put his finger on what that deeper satisfaction was.

In any event, Yang found himself enjoying the time he spent with Reuenthal, even in the dreadful hand-to-hand combat classes he reluctantly attended. He was terrible at them, and no amount of coaching from Reuenthal about how to move properly was helpful at all. Still, Reuenthal seemed to enjoy having him attend, and was more patient as a teacher than Yang had expected, so Yang kept going, even if he felt he wasn't getting anything out of it except sore arms and a headache.

He may have been the member of the freshman class least likely to win a fistfight, despite all his practice, but Yang soared in his academics. He had top marks in his theoretical and history classes, and was somewhat undefeated in the strats practicum. 

He could only say "somewhat" undefeated, because he did occasionally have to face Reuenthal. He somehow always knew immediately when he was being pitted against his friend, and he suspected that Reuenthal knew as well, no matter if Yang was trying to disguise himself or not. They were evenly matched intellectually, but their temperaments when it came to strategy differed significantly. Yang was perpetually pragmatic, though not overly cautious. Reuenthal, on the other hand, let his pride get the best of him during strats; it was his biggest and only weakness. If he felt he had the upper hand, he would seize on it, get too 'hot', and allow openings in his strategy. Yang could capitalize on those moments. 

Against everyone else, Reuenthal won. Against Yang, his pride and abilities forced him to settle for simply "not losing". This was fine with Yang, who, above all else, valued a tactical retreat when it looked like the most optimal solution. 

Their matches often ended in draws, or in confusing situations without what could be called a victory condition for either side. Yang suspected that they gave whoever was GMing their game that week a headache. The games always went long, as well.

Yang cared less about winning these games than he did about having a kind of secret conversation with Reuenthal, in which they each presented their side of the "argument", their preferred tactics, and worked out the relative merits. He didn't know if Reuenthal felt the same way, and he never spoke aloud about the kind of intellectual dialogue that he thought they were having, but when it came time to write the postmortem, they often silently exchanged papers, read the other's, then added on an additional section to their own discussing what their opponent had said.

His life settled into this satisfying rhythm as the temperatures dropped and winter came to that part of Odin. During winter break, the period between the winter solstice and New Year's, there were no classes, and most students (at least those from Odin itself) chose to go home. Yang had no such opportunity, so he remained in his dorm at the IOA, grateful for the opportunity to catch up on sleep and the few assignments he had left to do. Reuenthal had returned to his family's home for break, so Yang was alone, but a few days before New Year's, he received a message.

< I'm coming back to the IOA early

< I have also been invited to a New Year's party at the estate of Count Mariendorf 

< Do you want to come?

> do you want me to come?

< I wouldn't invite you if I didn't

> do I have to dress up?

< You can wear your dress uniform

> are any unpleasant people going to be there?

< Almost certainly

< But since I am going to have to enjoy the company of unpleasant people

< I would hope to enjoy your company as well

> you flatter me.

> I'm sure my presence would cause a scene

< If you're going to graduate from the IOA, people are going to have to get used to you eventually

Yang couldn't quite find holes in Reuenthal's logic, and since the other man was asking for his company specifically, Yang couldn't exactly refuse. He had never heard of Count Mariendorf, but he wasn't exactly well versed in the who's-who of the Imperial nobility. If there was any subject that Yang found less interesting, Yang had yet to find it.

Still, on the night of the party, Yang dressed in his dress uniform and tried to comb his hair into some sort of order in his bedroom mirror. Reuenthal knocked on his door.

"I'm coming," Yang said, giving up on his hair and heading into the hallway.

Reuenthal, also in his dress uniform, looked good, but he always looked good. Next to him, Yang always felt slightly under prepared and graceless. Reuenthal reached towards Yang's shoulder and brushed a piece of lint off him. "Ready?"

"Sure."

Reuenthal had borrowed a car from his family, and he drove them to the Mariendorf estate. It was a pretty house, surrounded by snow covered pines, though Yang couldn't say that he loved the classical imperial style that every noble house seemed to be constructed in. There were many other cars parked along the driveway, so this was apparently a large gathering and not a small, private affair.

Yang and Reuenthal walked up the long path together, and were greeted at the door by the butler, then directed into the main hall.

A vivacious older blonde woman wearing a truly voluminous blue dress practically swooped down on them as they entered the hall and stood in the doorway. "Oskar! I'm so glad you could make it! Who is your friend?"

"Countess Mariendorf, this is my classmate, Hank von Leigh. Herr von Leigh, this is Countess Mariendorf." 

Countess Mariendorf smiled broadly at Yang. "Any friend of Oskar's is a friend of mine, I'm sure."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Yang said, very awkwardly as the countess grasped his hand. She seemed nice, but he also felt cornered, which always made him start looking for the nearest exit. Reuenthal placed a hand on Yang's arm, perhaps sensing his nervousness. 

"I've known Oskar since he was this big," the countess said, and held her hands apart to indicate the size of baby Reuenthal, which was, admittedly, a funny mental image for Yang. "Please, come in, enjoy the party. My husband is around somewhere; I'm sure he'd love to meet Oskar's friends, and Hilde will be so glad to see you, too!"

"I will keep an eye out for them both," Reuenthal said, with patience that sounded to Yang only slightly exaggerated. The countess smiled again, then flitted away to entertain other guests, which allowed Reuenthal and Yang to enter the party properly.

The whole main hall was decked out in blue and silver garlands for the new year, and twinkling lights and candles covered every available surface. There were tables laid out with food and drinks, a band was playing near the front of the room, and the center of the hall was filled with dancing couples, all dressed in the imperial fashion: wide gowns with embroidered bodices, velvet jackets and cravats for the men, every inch an opulent display of wealth. 

“How do you know her?” Yang asked, as soon as they were further into the party.

“She was friends with my mother, and kept a kind of interest in me when I was a child,” Reuenthal said, rather shortly.

“Oh.” Yang decided not to press that topic further. “Which one is the count?”

“Over there.” Reuenthal nodded, but did not point, at a man standing talking to a group of other guests. “He’s fine.”

“High praise.”

“And who is Hilde?”

“Hildegarde. Probably the youngest guest at the party. I think she’s six.” 

Yang was somewhat stymied as to what one actually did at a party. Reuenthal had gone directly to the drinks table and brought him back a glass of wine, which he sipped on, but then there was nothing to do but stand around. At this party, their IOA ranks, the only things that gave them some semblance of status at school, were meaningless, and Reuenthal seemed to have no desire to talk with the gathered group of minor nobility. Yang didn’t want to talk to them either, and didn’t know anyone, so it led to them lurking on the edges of the party and doing a lot of people watching.

Eventually, Count Mariendorf came over to speak with them both, upon the prompting of his wife, who they watched point them out across the room. 

“Good evening, Herr von Reuenthal, Herr von Leigh,” Count Mariendorf said as he approached.

“Good evening,” Reuenthal said. “I see the countess told you about my friend.”

“Of course.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Yang said, rather awkwardly, and shook hands with the count. 

He asked the question that Yang always dreaded, “Where are you from?” but it didn’t have the tone of malice that it came with about half the time, so Yang smiled and answered.

“Phezzan, sir.”

“Beautiful planet, Phezzan. Expensive to live there, though,” Mariendorf said. “Do you two just know each other from the Academy?”

“Leigh is number two in the class,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh? Congratulations.”

“I have several more years to try to keep that rank,” Yang said, scratching the back of his head. “We’ll see what happens. Besides, Reuenthal is number one.”

“You scamp,” Count Mariendorf said. “You should have led with that. Congratulations to you as well.” He clapped Reuenthal on the shoulder. “I am looking forward to your successful career.”

“I hope that I live up to your expectations.”

“Do you get to go out much, at the Academy? Or do they keep you locked down in study?”

“Sometimes,” Reuenthal said.

“Any girls ever come visit?”

“Not in particular.”

“Well then! There’s plenty of eligible young ladies here tonight. Why don’t you both have some fun? There’s no need to be shy. Lots of women love a handsome cadet.”

“Of course, sir,” Reuenthal said. 

Mariendorf turned and called out to some of the women who were chatting on the side of the room, a few meters away from where Yang and Reuenthal were. “Fraulein von Burren, Fraulein Steffelson, would you come over here? There’s some people I would love for you to meet.”

The two women glanced at their friends, then at the stiff backed cadets, whispered, said something that Yang couldn’t hear, then approached, curtseying. Reuenthal gave a half bow, then picked the nearer woman’s hand and gave it a kiss. “Pleasure to meet you, Fraulein,” Reuenthal said.

Yang gave a half bow, imitating Reuenthal, but did not attempt to kiss anyone’s hand.

“Now, you four should do the things that youths do best. Enjoy the music,” Count Mariendorf said, then made a fast exit, heading back to rejoin his wife. Yang could see them over the shoulder of this woman, von Burren, having some sort of discussion and looking back at Reuenthal and Yang. Yang shook his head slightly, then focused on the lady in front of him.

“Er. Did you want to dance?” he asked, figuring that this was the socially appropriate thing to do.

“Of course, Herr…?”

“Oh. Von Leigh. Hank von Leigh.”

“Then I’d be happy to, Herr Hank von Leigh.” Yang shot a glance at Reuenthal, not wanting to abandon him, but Reuenthal’s face had developed a smooth and empty mask, an expression that Yang hadn’t seen on him before, and he was holding out his arm for the other woman to take, and proceeding to the dance floor, leaving Yang behind.

Fumblingly, Yang walked with his partner towards the dance floor, and when the next song started, put his hands in the same places that everyone else was putting theirs, and attempted to dance, shuffling in time to the music. His natural clumsiness compounded with his reluctance at being in this situation, and he stepped on this woman’s toes, several times. She was nice enough about it, and did not mention it, but when the song ended, she said her goodbyes and went back to her friends, glancing over her shoulder a couple times. 

Yang abandoned the dance floor with relief, and leaned against the wall, watching Reuenthal dance. He seemed to have a natural way with it, and spun his partner around, causing her to laugh loud enough for Yang to hear over the music. When the next song ended, the woman who had abandoned Yang tapped Reuenthal on the shoulder and asked him for a dance, which he gave to her.

As Yang was standing by the wall, swishing some wine around in a glass but not quite drinking it, wondering how exactly he had let Reuenthal drag him into this, a child wandered up to him. He looked down at her. She was wearing a dress, but she had hiked it up and shoved the train of it into the pair of pants that she was wearing.

“Hi,” she said.

Yang crouched down to be eye level with her. “Hi,” he replied. “Are you Fraulein Hilde?”

“How did you know?”

“My friend told me that there’s only one person here who’s your height,” Yang said. “So she must be you.”

“Oskar said that?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Hank von Leigh,” he said, and stuck out his hand for her to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Fraulein Hilde.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said. She looked at him with a sharp and curious expression. “My dad said you’re not from around here.”

“I’m from a different planet,” Yang said.

Hilde wrinkled her nose. “I want to go to a different planet.”

“Why? Odin is beautiful,” Yang said.

“I just do.”

“I understand.” He looked at Hilde, decided she was probably about as bored at this party full of people she didn’t understand as he was, and he smiled at her. “Do you like to dance, Hilde?”

“No.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“I don’t like to dance either,” he whispered in a conspiratorial tone. That got her to laugh, which Yang considered a victory. “What do you like to do?”

Hilde considered the question for a second. “See things, I guess.”

“What kind of things?”

“I don’t know, just things. Trucks.”

Yang laughed. “Even though we don’t like dancing, do you want to dance anyway, Fraulein? You can say no. I’m just not sure what else to do at a party.”

“You eat food,” Hilde said matter-of-factly. “And then you leave when you get tired.”

“I like that thought. Strategic goals and a tactical retreat.” He ruffled her hair, and she ducked out of his hand.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay what?”

“You can dance with me.”

Yang smiled and stood, offering her his hand. “Then may I have the pleasure of this dance, Fraulein Mariendorf?”

She giggled and took his hand, delighting in his mock seriousness. Yang led her to the dance floor. He spent a while holding her hands and gently walking back and forth with her, in a pantomime of the real dance. It was far easier not to step on her feet when she was so much smaller and much more liable to wiggle out of his way. When she started to yawn, Yang spun her around one last time, then sent her back to her mother, waving goodbye. Hilde glanced back at him a couple times as she walked back to her mother, then pulled on her mother’s dress and pointed at him. Yang gave a friendly wave and smile to the countess.

Yang returned to his previous passtime, which was waiting for Reuenthal to finish dancing. He seemed to have an endless energy for it, so Yang found himself glancing at his watch, checking obsessively for how many minutes were left until midnight, after which point he presumed they could both go home. 

Home. Hah. Back to the IOA dorms. Was that home? 

He got himself another glass of wine.

At a minute or so before midnight, Count Mariendorf stood up in the front of the room, and called everyone’s attention. At last, Reuenthal abandoned his last dance partner, and came to find Yang. “Having a good time?”

“I haven’t found anyone so unpleasant as you had led me to believe,” Yang whispered, so as not to speak over the count’s speech. That was about as much positive as he could say about the party. “The food is good.”

Reuenthal smiled and handed Yang another glass of wine.

“Fünf! Vier! Drei! Zwei! Eins! Happy New Year!” There was a general raucous of celebration.

“Prosit!” Reuenthal said, then clashed his glass against Yang’s, a little too hard. 

“Prosit,” Yang said. 

The band at the front of the room struck up in a particularly melancholy sounding rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

* * *

  
  


_ January, 476 IC, Odin _

They escaped the party a bit later. Yang was not what could be called sober at that point. He didn’t know how drunk Reuenthal was, but at least the car drove itself, so they weren’t going to crash on the way.

On the exit to the party, the countess had pressed yet another bottle of wine into Reuenthal’s hands, thanking him for coming, and expressing once again just how glad she was to see him, and how glad she was he was doing well. Reuenthal handled that situation with more aplomb than Yang would have been able to.

Now, they stumbled back into the dorm. Yang had some difficulty getting the key into the lock, so Reuenthal took it from him and opened the door, sending them both tumbling into Yang’s messy room. Reuenthal kicked the door shut behind himself, not waiting for an invitation from Yang, though he certainly would have given it.

“Happy New Year,” Reuenthal said, sitting down on Yang’s bed. Yang himself clambered unsteadily to sit on top of his desk, sitting criss cross, with his elbows on his knees. “Shall we have our own toast?” Reuenthal asked.

“What are we toasting to?” Yang asked. Reuenthal was looking around in the mess of Yang’s room for cups, and the only thing he found was Yang’s battered thermos. He unscrewed the top of it, shook out some droplets of old tea, and then used his pocket knife to pry the cork out of the wine bottle, pouring himself some wine in the main part of the thermos, and Yang some wine in the detached cup.

“To the future!” Reuenthal said. “Prosit!”

“Prosit,” Yang said. They knocked their beverage containers together and drank.

“To the class of 479! Prosit!”

“To Wednesday’s practicum! Prosit!

“To victory!”

Reuenthal kept saying more things to toast to, but Yang didn’t mind. 

“To Hank von Leigh!”

Yang shook his head. “Don’t toast to that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“That’s not even my name,” he said, then laughed. He kept laughing, feeling odd and melancholy but unable to stop. “You knew that, right? That’s not even my name.”

“Who am I toasting to then?” Reuenthal asked. His voice was deep and serious. He stood. “I need to know.”

“Yang Wen-li,” Yang said. And when he did it was a relief, like a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He looked at Reuenthal, who was staring at him again, with those luminous, mismatched eyes. Yang didn’t know what to do with his hands, all of a sudden. He was wringing the thermos cup back and forth in them.

“Then prosit, Yang Wen-li,” Reuenthal said.

“Prosit,” Yang said, very quietly. He started to raise his cup to his lips, but Reuenthal grabbed his arm, pushed it down, and leaned forwards towards Yang. Yang didn’t quite understand what was happening, leaned back, and toppled off his desk.

His head smashed into the wall mirror with a crash, and he tumbled to the floor, his wine cup spilling everywhere.

Reuenthal jumped backwards, then shook himself, taking a second to process the situation in his very drunk mind. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have--” 

Yang wasn’t exactly conscious. He hadn’t hit his head hard enough to knock himself out, but he found laying on the floor to be surprisingly comfortable, and had no motivation whatsoever to move or get up. Reuenthal crouched over him, made sure he was still breathing, and then paused a moment, reaching forward, then hesitating, then reaching forward again. Eventually, he got his hands underneath Yang’s arm, pulled him halfway to his feet, and dragged him out of the broken mirror shards and onto his bed. Yang didn’t resist, but also made no valuable contributions to this action.

One of his legs was still dangling down from the side of the bed. Reuenthal lifted that, too, and laid it onto the bed properly, then tugged the very wrinkled comforter up over Yang, who had his eyes closed at this point, his familiar posture of pretending to ignore everything that was happening around him.

Reuenthal looked around the messy room, grabbed the half-empty wine bottle from the floor, turned off the light, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole story is in some ways meant to be a commentary on like, how people communicate information when they can't quite say it out loud. The conversation where Reuenthal and Yang are talking about Alexander the Great is a great example of how things can go wrong-- Reuenthal is talking about how Alexander the Great can be read as being a little bit gay (well. if you do a gay reading of Alexander the Great's life, you end up with the conclusion that he was 'a lot gay'). Yang is not picking up on that hinting whatsoever. And when they're talking about their types of ambitions-- Reuenthal thinks that Yang is talking about being gay, but he's actually talking about being a republican. It's a whole mess. Can of worms.
> 
> Anyway I think this chapter is really fun.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Check out my original science fiction for no historical references b/c history doesn't exist: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	6. Old College Try

_January-April, 476 IC, Odin_

Yang woke late the next morning with the worst headache he had ever had in his life. It was partially due to his intense hangover, and partially due to the tender lump on the back of his head, which he poked at with clumsy fingers. He didn't think he had a concussion, just a nasty bruise.

He wished he could say that he didn't remember how he had gotten the bruise, but he remembered it with perfect clarity. In the cold, clear light of day, it didn't make any more sense than it had in the haze of the night before, though.

He took a long, cold shower until he couldn't stand it anymore, then returned to his room and began the tedious process of picking all the shards of broken mirror out of his carpet. Once it at least wasn't dangerous to walk around, he turned his attention to putting the rest of everything back in order: the books that had been knocked down, the unlucky papers that had gotten wine on them, his dress uniform that he had slept in.

Yang kept checking his phone, hoping that Reuenthal would text him, and he left his door ajar as an invitation, in case he walked by and wanted to come in, but there was no sign of him.

At dinner time, Yang went to the cafeteria and sat in his usual spot. He had brought a book to keep himself company, just in case he ended up eating alone, as he had during the beginning of the school year. But his mind refused to focus on the text, and his eyes slid over the pages without comprehension. He pushed his rice around with his fork dolefully and drank his oversteeped tea.

"May I sit here?" Reuenthal asked.

Yang jumped, not having noticed him approach. "You don't have to ask," he said, and closed his book.

Reuenthal sat down, but did not look at Yang directly. He didn't speak, just ate in silence for a minute or so. Yang didn't want to disturb him, so he did the same, looking down at his plate. Finally, Reuenthal spoke. "Last night," he said.

Yang took a breath to say something, but Reuenthal shook his head a fraction, and Yang stopped. 

"Last night, I did something unbecoming of myself while under the influence. I apologize. It will not happen again."

"Reuenthal," Yang began.

"Von Leigh." His voice was as cool and professional as it had ever been. Yang hated this sudden change that had come over him. Even though they were in public, in the IOA cafeteria, Yang wanted to hear Reuenthal address him as Yang Wen-li, in the same tone he had used the night before. But that seemed to be a forbidden topic of conversation, now. 

Yang looked down at his plate. "I accept your apology," he said, not sure if he should add that there was nothing to apologize for. He couldn't have even described what had happened if he tried. Had it even been improper? His thoughts churned like sea foam.

"Thank you."

From that point on, life returned to some semblance of normal. Classes began again, they continued to be friends, and they did not discuss the matter further. But there was an undeniable difference in the way that Reuenthal acted towards Yang. It was as though there was some kind of invisible barrier between them. Where before Reuenthal might have laid a hand on Yang's arm to point something out, or quietly reached over to fix Yang's bent collar, now he stood slightly away, as though they were two magnets repelling each other. Even in the hand-to-hand class that Yang continued to attend, Reuenthal stopped partnering up with him for exercises, going back to practicing with the higher level students and leaving Yang to flounder alone. They continued to eat dinner together, but Reuenthal was careful to never meet Yang somewhere alone and private. They were only ever together in public. 

No one else seemed to notice this change, and Yang began to wonder if he was imagining it, but he knew he wasn't. He wished things could somehow go back to the way they were before, but there was no way for him to pull Reuenthal aside and ask him for that, because it wasn't something that could be put into words. And even if he could ask, there was the fear that Reuenthal would refuse. Yang had managed to break something, unintentionally, something he hadn't even known he had.

It was a terrible kind of loneliness, one that didn't make any sense. How could he miss Reuenthal, when Reuenthal was right there? 

Winter turned slowly into spring, coming in with first cold rain and then warm, bright days with the smell of flowers on the wind. Yang had said it to Hilde Mariendorf just as a passing comment, but he was coming to understand that Odin really was a beautiful planet. He could understand why the Empire kept its seat here. 

One warm April Wednesday, after GM'ing a war game in which Bittenfeld had been playing against Wahlen (Bittenfeld had lost, barely, because his early charge had been a little too successful, and he had gotten overconfident, allowing Wahlen to take him out), Yang and his little group of friends were sitting on the green. Bittenfeld was trying desperately to get Yang to take his side in the argument he was having.

"I GM'd the game," Yang said. "I think I would know if you deserved to win or not. You could have won, if you hadn't gotten careless." Yang had his head tilted back towards the sun, his arms stretched out behind him, propping him up.

"What do you think, Reuenthal?" Wahlen asked. "Should Bittenfeld have won?"

"I highly doubt it. But if you were on the verge of losing to him early, maybe you should drop a rank as well." There was humor in Reuenthal's tone.

"It seems borderline irresponsible for someone to deploy their entire brigade within the first thirty seconds of the game starting, without doing any preliminary planning or reconnaissance," Wahlen said.

"Clearly I didn't need either of those things," Bittenfeld pointed out. "That wasn't what caused my problem."

"It's amazing, the brain you have, that you can understand that you did cause yourself problems later, and yet still argue that you deserved to win," Reuenthal said.

Bittenfeld huffed. "Not all of us can be perfect."

"I've never once claimed perfection," Reuenthal said.

"I want to see you two go against each other again," Wahlen said, nodding at Yang. "It's been a while."

It was true that Yang and Reuenthal had not played a one-on-one war game against each other in months, though there had been a couple team exercises where they had been on opposite sides.

Bittenfeld snorted. "I don't think Staden wants Leigh to get a chance to dethrone the number one before the end of the year, since no one else would be able to beat you back and take the spot. It would look bad for the freshman class."

A mild pall fell over the conversation then, with Bittenfeld saying aloud an opinion that most people knew of, but felt was not tactful to admit. "I don't care about rank," Yang said. "I'm sure it would be more trouble than it's worth to be first. We can all be grateful that Reuenthal bears that burden for us."

Reuenthal chuckled. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Still," Wahlen said. "I want to see the matchup."

"You could force Staden to make you play each other," Bittenfeld said. "If you purposefully lost to someone else, then Leigh would be on top by default. He'd have to make you play so you could get the top slot back."

"Are you saying the only way you'd be able to beat me is if I let you win?" Reuenthal asked, and Bittenfeld made an offended noise.

"I never said I was talking about me!"

"Methinks he doth protest too much," Wahlen intoned. "It's fine, we're all just talking hypotheticals."

Bittenfeld was too grumpy to keep discussing it, so he changed the topic. "Have you all started thinking about your summer plans yet?"

“I’m going back to my family, down south.” Wahlen said. “My uncle runs a shipping company. If I have nothing better to do, I’m sure he’ll let me drive a truck.”

“What an elegant job for a top student,” Reuenthal said.

Wahlen laughed. “Until we graduate, ‘student’ is all the respect we get, which is not very much. I’ll take loading boxes and earning a paycheck over doing nothing. What about you?”

Reuenthal’s tone was guarded when he responded. “I intend to spend my summer in leisure. Perhaps I’ll wander about the countryside and empty my father’s liquor cabinet.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Bittenfeld said. “No childhood sweetheart you’re going home to catch up with?”

Reuenthal smiled his grim smile. “Oh, of course, Bittenfeld.”

“What about you, Leigh? Are you going back to Phezzan?” Bittenfeld leaned forward.

Yang had hardly considered his own summer plans, and had almost forgotten that summer break was a thing that existed. He scratched his head. “Er. No.”

“Not worth it for just the two months?” Wahlen asked.

“There’s nothing really there for me,” Yang said. “I guess I should try to…” He trailed off, scratching his head still. Nobody pressed him on it, but the conversation had brought up the subject in Yang’s mind, and he wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t stay in his dorm, so he probably had to get a job and sublet an apartment in the city, which sounded like an annoying set of tasks. He wished that the school term was year round, and that he didn’t have to go elsewhere.

After dinner that day, he and Reuenthal were walking back to the dorm. The air was the cool, fresh damp of any April evening, and the sky was mostly clear, leaving the first stars visible. Yang had his hands in his pockets, but he was feeling bolder than usual. “Hey, Reuenthal,” he said.

Reuenthal cocked his head to indicate that he was listening.

“About your summer…” Yang said.

“What about it?” There was a warning note of tension in Reuenthal’s voice, which almost made Yang stop, but he pressed on regardless.

“You don’t-- ah-- are there any places near where you live that I might be able to, uh, get a summer job? And sublet somewhere?” He clenched his hands into fists in his pockets, then tried to relax them.

Reuenthal turned to look at him slightly as they walked. “I’ll find you something,” he said. 

Yang backpedaled. “Don’t go out of your way,” he said. “I was just-- if you knew off hand-- you know.” He ran his hand through his hair.

Reuenthal smiled at him. “Don’t worry about it.” In a voice that was a clear attempt at levity, though it fell short of its goal, he added, “I wouldn’t leave you homeless.”

“Thank you,” said Yang with genuine emotion. 

* * *

_May, 476 IC, Odin_

It was the last week of classes before finals, which meant it was the last Wednesday practicum of the year. As Yang trooped into the building, Bittenfeld came up behind him and leaned his elbows heavily on Yang’s shoulders. “Guess what?” Bittenfeld asked.

“You’re breaking my back,” Yang said. “What?”

“I talked to Staden during his office hours yesterday.”

“Trying to save your grade?”

“Reuenthal’s bad manners are rubbing off on you,” Bittenfeld said. “No.”

“Alright, what did you talk to him about?”

“I got him to see the light. I convinced him to match you and Reuenthal up, just one last time.”

Yang ducked out from underneath Bittenfeld’s hold. “Why did you do that?” He was actually annoyed.

“Don’t you want to win?”

“Are you really that eager to see me beat him?”

“I think it would be funny. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I say that I don’t care about rank, and that I prefer to GM rather than actually play the game?”

“Because you’re good at the game?” Bittenfeld said, as though this was the most obvious thing in the world. “And you’re still not answering the question.”

Yang frowned. “I don’t want to try to one-up him. He’s my friend.”

Bittenfeld snorted. “He might also think he’s your friend, but that doesn’t mean he would waste a second in trying to beat you, if it came down to it.”

“You have a low opinion of what Reuenthal’s friendship is worth.”

“On the contrary,” Bittenfeld said, “I think that’s an admirable trait. Besides, we’re friends, and you’ve beaten me in here…” He counted on his fingers as he recalled various defeats he had taken at Yang’s hands. “At least four times.”

“Not counting the team games?”

“Why would I count those? That wasn’t my fault.”

Yang laughed. “Okay.”

“Anyway, all I’m saying is that you’re getting one more chance, you might as well take it.”

“You didn’t have to engineer the situation, though.”

Bittenfeld smiled in his approximation of ‘angelic’, then clapped Yang on the back, hard enough to send him stumbling forward a few steps. “I believe in you.”

Yang shook his head, then entered the classroom. Immediately, he could feel everyone’s eyes on him. Apparently, Bittenfeld had not been particularly discreet. He slid into the seat next to Reuenthal, who leaned over to speak to him quietly. Their shoulders brushed, an unusual lapse in Reuenthal’s discipline, which made Yang smile.

“I heard an interesting rumor,” Reuenthal said.

“I did as well. Do you think there’s any truth to it?”

“I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Nervous?” Yang asked.

“About you? Never.” Reuenthal straightened, a hint of a smile on his face, and paid attention to the front of the room, where Staden was coming in.

Yang could hardly pay attention to the lecture, for once, and he kept tapping his pen on his paper, alternating between watching the clock and glancing at Reuenthal. Reuenthal seemed unaffected, sitting loosely in his seat with his legs stretched out before him, a veritable picture of confidence. When it came time to leave for their game seats, Reuenthal didn’t say anything, just met Yang’s eyes and smirked. On somebody else, it might have been an infuriating expression, but Yang found himself grinning back, against his better intentions.

Despite his earlier protests to Bittenfeld about playing, Yang was filled once again with the strange excitement that always came over him when he was faced with an interesting challenge. He knew Reuenthal’s way of working almost as well as he knew his own, and he knew that it would be a challenge to beat him, indeed.

Yang found out exactly how much of a challenge it was, though, the minute he sat down at his terminal and began to read his assignment. He leaned back in his chair and smiled.

They were playing out an imaginary scene from the beginnings of the Earth-Sirius war, ancient history from before the Goldenbaum dynasty. Reuenthal had the United Earth Government’s forces under his command, and Yang had-- 

Yang had to laugh. He had almost nothing. Nominally, his “forces” occupied a city, and he had control of the territory, but his forces amounted to a bunch of ill equipped ragtag bands, a few tanks, a few trucks, some stationary artillery defenses, and nothing else.

He didn’t have to send out scouts to surveil Reuenthal’s forces: the GM indicated that he could see them in orbit with the naked eye-- ship after ship after ship.

Yang had been set up to lose. Not only lose, but lose brutally, without a chance. One thing that stood out, always, when reading about the Earth-Sirius War, was the almost incomprehensible number of civilian casualties. Fleets had invaded cities, and started slaughtering civilians on sight. What was Staden thinking, putting Reuenthal in the historical position of enacting such brutality? And what was he intending for Yang to do?

Before he began issuing commands, Yang leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and stared up at the ceiling. He collected himself. There were no civilians here, there were just numbers on a screen. He didn’t have to worry about actually preventing an atrocity. He didn’t have to worry about Reuenthal actually committing one.

He smiled. Actually, if Reuenthal wasn’t worried about atrocities, the battle would be over before it got started. Even if he didn’t have nuclear warheads on his ships, if he used a few of his ships as simple projectiles, accelerating them at the city by remote control, Reuenthal could wipe out the entire population. Yang would have absolutely no recourse against something like that. The fact that Reuenthal wasn’t doing that either meant he thought that keeping civilians alive was worth points in Staden’s eyes, or he was indicating to Yang that he was going to play fair.

If Reuenthal was going to play fair, that was all the better for Yang. It was an opening that he could use. But Reuenthal playing fair absolutely did not mean that he was required to do the same. After all, the deck was already stacked against him. He might as well do whatever he could.

There was not going to be any winning this fight. A city under siege, with no support coming, from a far more powerful enemy-- it would be physically impossible for Yang to win. But he could make losing hurt. He could even make losing hurt in such a way that it would both look and feel like a victory.

He typed out a question to the GMs. “How many civilians are in this city?”

“Ten million.”

“What’s the weather forecast for the next two weeks?”

“Temperatures in the 20°C range, heavy rain expected to last two days arriving next week.”

That was fine. “I want to address the civilian population. Broadcast on all radio frequencies that I can. I don’t care if the enemy hears it. In fact, it would be better if they did.”

“Message?”

Yang leaned back and considered exactly what he wanted to say. Reuenthal did love a touch of drama. Perhaps he should give him what he wanted. But then again, Yang had never thought of himself as much of a speech-giver. Maybe it was a good thing he was being set up to lose. He certainly didn’t want to be valedictorian and have to speak at graduation in a few years. Eisenach had the right idea. He was getting distracted.

Yang pictured himself standing in some dingy room, a basement, maybe, with a huddle of his compatriots around him (he couldn’t help but picture them as being people he knew: Bittenfeld and Wahlen and even Konev, though Konev had no right to be there). He held a microphone in his hands, trailing wires to a makeshift radio broadcast station. An expectant silence. Yang was really getting into the role. It was fun, in its own kind of way.

“This is a message to the people of this city,” Yang began. “It’s 7:15 local time. It’s a beautiful night out. Warm. If you can, please stop what you are doing and go outside. Just for a second. Go out onto the streets. 

“Look. The stars are out.

“In just a moment, coming around from the west, you’ll see the ships of the Earth Space Force. They’re crossing the horizon now. You might not be able to see them clearly, but look how they block out the stars. Sometimes, it’s absence which is most revealing.

“Some of you have made up your minds to leave. Some of you have made up your minds to stay. Some of you may have thought one thing, but now, looking up into the sky at these ships that are crossing the stars, you are wondering if you have been thinking about this all wrong.

“Listen to me,” Yang said. “Listen to me for a second.

“Every one of you has made a list in your heart about what is worth fighting for in this city, should you need to make the choice to take up a gun. Many of you, I am sure, would say that you would only do so to protect your family and the people you love. I commend you for that.

“Others may say that they would take up arms to defend themselves from tyranny. They would fight to live in peace, with self determination for all people. These people are my brothers.

“And some of you here may say that you wish to defend this city, because it is your home. This planet, because it is your fatherland.

“But what is a fatherland? It is just a piece of ground. What is a home? Without people in it, it is just a building.

“I said that absence is most revealing. Even now, I know that people are taking all they can carry on their backs and running as far as they can from this place.

“Soon, this city will be empty. All the people who have made it vibrant and a place worth protecting will have gone. Their absence will reveal that a home is nothing more than brick, and the fatherland is nothing more than a word.

“You would not make the choice to fight for empty buildings, empty streets, and an empty fatherland. You should go. Leave, be safe, and take the fatherland with you.

“I am a man without a family, and soon I will be a man without a fatherland. What remains is my spirit, and the things that I believe to be true. I believe that no power from across the galaxy should have the right to dictate the ways we live. No invading army should have the right to kill and plunder. And no man should have such authority without being resisted.

“These beliefs cannot be taken from me so long as I am living, and I can do nothing now but fight to show that this spirit remains alive in myself, and in the people of the fatherland, however dispersed they may become in the days ahead. 

“To those of you who are leaving: go in peace. Go well. Go safely.

“To those of you who are staying to take up arms with me: we must not desire to be martyrs here. There is a contradiction, that we must fight because to not do so would be to sacrifice something greater than our own lives, but our lives are the most precious things that we have. We will not throw them away, and we will not allow them to be taken easily.

“We are not an army of martyrs, because we will not embrace defeat and death before we have even begun. We are not an army of martyrs, because we are fighting for things worth living for. 

“I wish that we were all living a different life, one where we could live peaceful lives with the people we love. But wishing will do us no good. We have work to do.”

And then the real work began. Yang confirmed that the people who would not be staying to fight were leaving, and then did his best to reorganize the rest, forming them into organized resistance units and posting them at key locations throughout the city. He delved deep into the city’s architecture, internally cursing the fact that since this city was not real, the maps and diagrams of its structure were both somewhat unrealistic and also incomplete. He described what he wanted to do to the GMs as best he could and just hoped that they would put it into practice.

The city had plenty of construction vehicles available. They were repurposed into weapons of war: slow tanks, but heavy, and with a machine gunner on top, a bulldozer could do real damage. He put those units on the streets.

He put people in the sewers, disguising the entrances and exits to underground areas, the tunnels that held the city’s power lines. His maps may have been incomplete, but Reuenthal had none. That was an advantage of playing defense.

He had the GMs tell him exactly what was left in the chemical plants and refineries on the outskirts of the city, and he determined with his limited knowledge of chemistry what exactly could be made to explode, or, at the very least, catch fire.

He made caches of food and supplies throughout the city.

He put snipers in as many windows as he could.

He told everyone to be on the lookout for mirror signals from the rooftops. He put message runners in the tunnels underground, asynchronous communications, messages left in caches, passed hand to hand.

He put dynamite in the stairwells of every building he thought the Earth forces might want.

He collapsed buildings on the outskirts, to block the roads in. He blew up bridges.

He made the city as inhospitable as he could to anyone who did not know it as well as they knew the face of their own mother.

And then Yang simply waited for Reuenthal to respond, which he did as soon as the column of civilians had moved their long and desperate march far enough away from the city. Reuenthal was a man of honor, after all. That had given Yang enough time to prepare.

Reuenthal clearly understood that Yang’s tactic going in was to make as much use of the landscape and the chaotic nature of asymmetrical warfare as he could. He also understood that the longer the conflict drew on, the worse it would be for him. So he came in hard and fast, trying to avoid Yang’s blockades of the city entrances by doing targeted airstrikes to clear buildings, then airdropping in troops, at the same time as his motorized units approached the city from the outside. In Reuenthal’s ideal plan, the two groups would form pincers that would meet up. He probably wanted the airdropped troops to be able to deal with insurgents in the buildings quickly, taking out snipers, ensure that there were no landmines or other problems awaiting the heavy armored vehicles that would slowly clear the rubble and enter the city.

Of course, troops like that were very vulnerable to the same things they were sent in to stop. One only could catch a sniper after first being sniped at, and the paratroops by necessity had little in the way of heavy weaponry. It was an odd choice on Reuenthal’s part-- in some ways, his troops and Yang’s were evenly matched. But it paid off over time when they were able to seize buildings and key intersections that Yang would have preferred to have blown up, if he had time. Without knowing what angle the armored vehicles were going to approach from, Yang hadn’t been able to close those key areas early, and the ground troops prevented him from doing so. So, although Reuenthal’s strategy incurred heavy losses in his initial wave, it also allowed him to have a foothold in the city, one that he might have taken far longer to gain if he hadn’t deployed those troops.

Reuenthal had perhaps been given some kind of edict to maintain city infrastructure, so he kept his aerial attacks limited, even though those would have been the most effective thing against Yang’s forces. Yang had no such compulsion. Reuenthal wanted this battle to be over quickly, but Yang dug himself in. Let him get impatient, he thought.

One key problem that made this kind of irregular warfare difficult in reality, and difficult for the GMs to simulate, was the lack of centralized command. Yang did his best to ameliorate that problem by having as robust of a signaling and message structure as he could. It wasn’t precisely realistic, but he was taking advantage of the falseness of the game. If no one was real, he could spend their lives without guilt. If the game was fake, he could play the GM’s instincts and limitations to his advantage.

So, even though his tactic was designed with chaos in mind, Yang was able to individually direct his insurgent troop movements, which was an advantage he shouldn’t have had. Imaginary people behaved so well and worked in such perfect coordination. He anticipated where Reuenthal would want to move his troops, and he countered with small squads converging from all directions.

The battle stretched on for weeks, more than a month of in game time. Class time, too, ticked along, but Yang was absorbed in the game enough that he hardly noticed.

Reuenthal had what felt like unlimited forces at his disposal, and Yang did not. Yang’s power was being reduced like one might empty a bathtub with a teaspoon: slowly, in drips and drabs, but surely. His forces, though highly mobile, ceded territory when they had to, and didn’t have the manpower to retake it.

Even still, he could practically feel Reuenthal’s impatience. With every building that Yang destroyed, or every street that he blocked off, it was perhaps a tick in his rubric against taking the city whole and sound. It would cost the victor a lot to make this place liveable. 

This was the expected outcome. He smiled.

“I would like to make another radio broadcast,” Yang said to the GMs. “Do I have that ability still?”

“Yes.”

“Long ago,” Yang began, “I said that we were not an army of martyrs. Perhaps that was a misstatement: we were not an army at all. We started out with no uniforms, and we end with no bullets left. Hardly a standing army. But there are still enough of us alive who I would like to see avoid becoming martyrs.

“We were fighting for our city. Well, there’s hardly a city left to fight for.

“We were fighting for our friends and brothers. Well, it would be better to live to continue to be friends and brothers.

“We were fighting for our pride. And, in the end, what’s that worth? Not a life.

“To the enemy commander: I know that you have spent a lot to take and hold this patch of ground, far from your own home. For every one of us, we have killed five of you. We could draw this out until you have paid in blood for every last inch of street, every last brick. But what would be the point of that?

“I would like to meet, to discuss the terms of our surrender. You choose the place.”

Yang waited for a response.

“Are you surrendering? -GM”

“@GM, no, I’m discussing the TERMS of surrender. I want to get something out of this. Don’t end the game.”

Yang could practically feel the GMs roll their eyes.

“You receive a message from the enemy commander. He will meet you at this location.” A building flashed up on Yang’s map, one that was in an area that had been controlled by the enemy for a long time. Yang had given it up early, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still have value.

He overlaid that map with a secondary one, his map of the electrical grid beneath the city, all those conduits and tunnels. It was such a simple thing, to send someone down there. He had avoided using the tunnels for destructive purposes thus far, in the hopes that Reuenthal wouldn’t think they were of strategic importance, or waste time mapping them out. 

“I order all my above ground troops into a temporary ceasefire, and I walk to the meeting location.”

“You are meeting with the enemy commander. What are your terms?”

“I do not personally expect to be treated with mercy,” Yang typed.

“That’s not a term.”

Yang smiled. “I ask for a cup of tea.”

“You are given a cup of tea.”

“I drink it very, very slowly,” Yang muttered aloud. But he typed, “@GMs. Give me the timestamp compared to the estimated completion timestamp on my last combat order.”

“One minute.”

“I tell Reuenthal something profound about not being a martyr,” Yang typed. “Advance the clock, please.”

“The enemy commander says, ‘Have you decided what level you’re playing the game on?’”

The clock advanced. “Your last combat order has been carried out. The building at 27 Katchoi St. has been destroyed. You have died.”

Yang’s computer screen blacked out, and he glanced at the real clock on the wall. Four thirty. He cringed a little and gave an apologetic glance to the long suffering TA in the front of the room, who sighed loudly. He stood and stretched, feeling odd in his own skin after so long lost in the fantasy he had been creating. In a way, it felt more real than the hallway that he stepped into, waiting for Reuenthal to show up.

The door down the hall opened, and Reuenthal came out. He wasn’t smiling. “Congratulations on your win,” he said.

“I definitely didn’t win,” Yang said. “At best, I didn’t lose.”

“Staden wants to see you,” Reuenthal said, then jerked his head at the classroom he had just left. “Oh, and this is yours.” He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Yang.

“What is it?”

But Reuenthal was already headed down the hallway.

Yang wondered if maybe he had gone too far. He had known that Reuenthal would probably be annoyed at him, for breaking the accepted rules of not attempting to assassinate the other side’s commander during a surrender. Still, the actual feeling of Reuenthal being annoyed at him was a distinctly uncomfortable one. He ran his fingers through his hair and then went into the other classroom, the one where Staden was waiting for him.

“What was that all about, von Leigh?” Staden asked immediately, no trace of patience on his face or in his tone.

“What do you mean, sir?” Yang asked.

“‘You would not make that choice for the fatherland,’” Staden quoted, misphrasing Yang’s earlier speech. “What kind of garbage is this?”

“I was playing a role, sir.”

“Gods above, von Leigh, I can’t have this in the class record. You’re going to be an officer in the Imperial Fleet.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I was just playing the game. I thought Reuenthal would think it was funny.”

“It’s not a game,” Staden said, standing up from his seat. “This isn’t for your amusement. It’s not for you to have inside jokes with Reuenthal. This is to teach you the rules of warfare.”

“May I speak candidly, sir?” Yang asked.

“Clearly you already have been.” 

“If you were intending for me to learn the rules of warfare, you shouldn’t have had me play as an insurgent.”

“You made that choice yourself.”

“Reuenthal would have prefered if we were evenly matched.”

“This isn’t about Reuenthal. It’s about you.”

“Then what was the point?” Yang asked. “Was it to teach Reuenthal to fight against someone who had nothing to lose? Was it to teach me to be creative in an unwinnable circumstance? Was it just to stop me from taking the number one spot?” Lamely, Yang tacked on, “Sir.”

“Let’s get one thing clear, von Leigh. This stunt did not win you the number one spot.”

“I didn’t expect it to,” Yang said calmly. “Math may not be my strong suit, but I did look at the way rank is calculated. I know that class grades count for far less than the practicum, but considering that Reuenthal and I have the same score record in the practicum, and I take twice as many classes as he does, in which I earn high marks, the logic would bear out that I have the top spot. I do not, and I don’t ever expect to get it, no matter how much I win.”

Staden narrowed his eyes at Yang, who stood relaxed in front of him. “This will be marked down as a loss on your record.”

“I know, sir. Was there anything else you wanted from me?”

“Please take care to reread the scenario transcript before submitting your postmortem,” Staden said. His voice was cold as ice.

“I will, sir.” 

Yang headed out. Bittenfeld and Wahlen were waiting for him outside the building.

“What did you do to Reuenthal?” Wahlen asked. “I’ve never seen him so… You know.”

“I lost to him,” Yang said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Bittenfeld shook his head. “Such poor manners from our number one. He could stand to win more gracefully.”

“Hopefully he’ll get over it,” Yang said.

Later, back in his dorm, Yang remembered the envelope that Reuenthal had given him. It had neat cursive on the front, and Reuenthal’s name and dorm address. The envelope was already open, so Yang took out the contents.

_Oskar,_

_Of course I would be willing to host your friend for the summer. Any friend of yours is a friend of mine. Please give him the enclosed letter informing him._

_And, while he is here, please do come and visit. I feel like I get to see you so rarely. I know you’re a very busy man, but surely over the summer you can spare some time. Please let me know. Hilde loves to see you._

_Yours,_

_Amelie Mariendorf_

The second letter, unsurprisingly, was addressed to Yang.

_Dear Herr von Leigh,_

_I hope this letter is not too presumptuous, and that you remember making my acquaintance at my home on New Years. Our mutual friend, Oskar von Reuenthal, has informed me that you are looking for a place to stay over the summer break from the IOA, as you are not from Odin. I would like to extend an invitation for you to stay on my estate for the duration, as my guest._

_My daughter, Hildegarde, greatly enjoyed your company when she met you. Even though she is young, I believe her to be an excellent judge of character. Your friendship with Oskar also speaks highly to your character and talents. I admit that this is partially a selfish request: if one of Oskar’s friends is staying in my home, he may be more inclined to visit._

_Please consider accepting this offer in the same spirit it was given: mutual friendship and without reservations. I look forward to your response._

_Sincerely,_

_Countess Amelie Mariendorf_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IN THE WAY THOSE EYES I'VE ALWAYS LOVED ILLUMINATE THIS PLACE: LIKE A TRASHCAN FIRE IN A PRISON CELL, LIKE THE SEARCHLIGHTS IN THE PARKING LOTS OF HELL. I WILL WALK DOWN TO THE END WITH YOU IF YOU WILL COME ALL THE WAY DOWN WITH ME.
> 
> The Reuenthal / Mariendorf friendship connection is something that I made up for plot convenience, but it's not completely implausible or contrary to canon, so you'll have to forgive me for its existence.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Check out my original space opera for too many mountain goats song titles: bit.ly/shadowofheaven
> 
> Lydia convinced me to retcon a part of this chapter. Don’t worry, you’ll hardly notice the change.


	7. No Roses Without Thorns / No Summers Without Storms

_ May, 476 IC, Odin _

Reuenthal spent the rest of the school year not actually speaking to Yang, which was a deeply unpleasant experience. Although they sat together at dinner still, Reuenthal responded to anything that was said in monosyllables, and Yang decided that he wasn’t going to deal with that, so he pulled out his books and did his best to study for finals.

It was only after final results and end year rankings were calculated that Reuenthal changed his behavior. Yang was packing up his dorm room when there was a knock on his door. He opened it. Reuenthal was standing there, looking, well, apologetic was not the right word. But the fact that he was there was enough of a concession. Yang smiled and held open the door for Reuenthal to come inside, but he just shook his head.

“I’ll talk to Staden about fixing your rank,” Reuenthal said.

“Don’t bother,” Yang replied. He went back to picking up papers from his floor and stuffing them into a garbage bag, while Reuenthal leaned on his doorframe.

“You deserve the number one spot.”

“I don’t think our last matchup could really be called a win on my end,” Yang said lightly. “And I probably should apologize to you for not playing fair.”

“I should have listened when you told me that you didn’t expect to be treated with mercy.”

Yang laughed. “I should have taken my own words to heart.”

“Still,” Reuenthal said. “Your rank should be commensurate with your abilities. Even if it wasn’t a technical win, you had better tactics through the whole match. Staden should give you more credit for doing so well in an unwinnable situation.”

“Did you read the game transcript when you were writing your postmortem?”

“No. I remembered it well enough.”

“You might want to,” Yang said. “Just for your own edification.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Yang smiled. “Staden is also playing the game on a different level.”

Reuenthal was silent for a minute as Yang continued to clean up his room. When Yang glanced up at him, he could see Reuenthal’s face darken as he read the match transcript on the class intranet on his phone. 

The transcript had been heavily edited to remove most of Yang’s more “interesting” commands, including his speeches and messages, and the last few minutes of the game where he had taken out Reuenthal’s command. It now looked like Yang had slowly been losing, and then surrendered. It was true in the way that things entered into the public record became the truth. False battles. Yang felt like he had come full circle, in a way. After all, it had been analysis of a fake battle that had put him in this position to begin with.

“Why are you letting them do this to you?” Reuenthal asked.

Yang paused in pulling the sheets off his bed and stuffing them into his laundry hamper. “I don’t care about rank.”

“I’m not talking about just rank.”

“Ages ago, you told me to be more ambitious,” Yang began.

“I still think that’s the case.”

“And I told you that I had the wrong kind of ambitions.”

Reuenthal nodded, a distinctly uncomfortable tension in his shoulders.

“When one has the wrong kind of ambitions, it’s sometimes better to let things like this go. It doesn’t matter,” Yang said. “The future is a big place, and the fewer enemies I make now to hide in it, the better.”

“I think I misunderstood you when we originally had that conversation,” Reuenthal said. “And for that, I apologize.”

Yang laughed. “What did you think I meant?”

“Something even less proper than what you’re currently implying.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

“You would take offense at the implication.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t,” Yang said, but Reuenthal refused to speak on the matter further. Yang allowed him to change the topic without pressing.

“You told the countess that you would be staying with her over the summer?”

“Yes,” Yang said, and scratched his head. “I didn’t want to impose--”

Reuenthal shook his head. “She has plenty of both space in her house and money. You’ll hardly be an imposition.”

“I don’t understand why she would make an offer like that.”

“She’s a generous woman. And I’m sure that she and the count are already trying to find an appropriate match for their daughter.”

Yang snorted. “Number one, I’m hardly an appropriate match for the daughter of a count. Number two, she’s six.”

“Seven. Her birthday was in February.”

“So much better.” Yang shook his head. “Are you going to come visit over the summer?”

Reuenthal crossed his arms. “We’ll see.”

“I get the feeling that the Mariendorfs consider your visiting a payment for having me stay there. I’ll do you some favor when the school year starts to make up for it.”

“I should start charging for my time by the hour,” Reuenthal said dryly.

“And I would like to see you, as well, you know.”

Reuenthal smiled a little. “We’ll see.”

* * *

_ June, 476 IC, Odin _

Yang arrived at the Mariendorf household with his few possessions and rang their doorbell. The butler greeted him and showed him into a little reception room. Yang stood in it alone, stiffly, looking at the colorful upholstered furniture and the decorative plaster on the walls. After a minute or so, the countess swept in, wearing a much less formal dress than she had been the last time Yang had seen her. Yang was dressed in the Imperial fashion for the first time-- he had needed to scramble to find clothes that weren’t his school uniform-- and he didn’t exactly like the crushed velvet waistcoat and jacket that he was wearing. 

The countess smiled at him. “Herr von Leigh! Welcome!”

“Er, thank you, Countess Mariendorf,” he said, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s very generous of you to host me like this.”

“There’s no need to thank me,” she said, gesturing for him to have a seat on one of the couches. She sat across from him. “And please, call me Amelie.”

“I don’t want to be improprietous,” Yang said, but he smiled.

“No such thing,” Amelie said with a wave of her hand.

“It’s just funny to me-- you call Reuenthal ‘Oskar’-- should I tell you to call me ‘Hank’?”

“Not all of us can be stiff backed cadets afraid to call each other by their first names,” Amelie said. “But I will call you whatever you like to be called.”

When meeting her alone, Yang was developing a much more positive impression of the bright countess than he had at the party. She seemed genuine, and genuinely friendly towards him, without expectations. This sudden lack of expectations was a sharp contrast to the web of obligations that being in the IOA provided, even just when it came down to speaking with his friends.

“You can call me Hank, then, as long as the count doesn’t mind.”

Amelie laughed so hard she snorted. “Oskar didn’t tell me you were funny.”

“What did Reuenthal tell you about me?” He couldn’t quite bring himself to refer to his friend by his first name. It would have felt like talking about a stranger.

“He told me that you were a good friend of his, who needed a place to stay. He said that you were hard working and honest.”

“On one of those points, I’m afraid Reuenthal is wrong: I’m a deeply lazy man,” Yang said with a smile. “If I didn’t have the obligations of schoolwork, I would get up in the morning to drink a cup of tea, then go immediately back to bed.”

Amelie laughed again. “And yet you attend a military academy. So much for your ideal life of leisure.”

“Ah, but think about how I can retire with a nice military pension in the future. I play the long game.”

“Oskar may have mentioned something about that, as well.” 

“Hah. I’m never sure if he thinks highly of my tactics or not. I’ve yet to beat him in class.”

“Class is class. I don’t know why they insist on pitting you against each other. It doesn’t seem right to have His Majesty's forces trained to see each other as competition.”

“Unfortunately,” Yang said, trying to keep the irony out of his voice, “we don’t have any members of the rebel fleet to practice against. So, compete we must.”

“Maybe so. You aren’t upset about Oskar taking the top spot?” These questions seemed to be targeted. Perhaps this light conversation was trying to get to something deeper. Yang might have underestimated the countess.

“Reuenthal has been known to be more upset about me losing to him than I am.”

“Really?”

Yang smiled. “I don’t make his victories easy, but he earns them.”

“I see. I’d ask to hear about it, but I’m afraid I have no brain for military matters, and it would all go over my head. Perhaps my husband would enjoy hearing your stories.”

“I wouldn’t want to bore anyone.”

“I’m sure it’s not boring. Besides, I am always trying to hear more about how Oskar is doing. I love him, but he’s such a private man.”

Yang weighed his options. On one hand, he sensed an opportunity to learn more about Reuenthal, but, on the other, he was afraid of invading his friend’s privacy. He tried to prod at the issue obliquely-- perhaps Amelie would give him information of his own volition. “He told me that you knew his mother?”

“Yes, we were good friends in childhood,” Amelie said. “He reminds me of her-- he’s like her mirror image.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said. “It must be difficult for you to have lost a friend.”

Amelie shook her head. “It was many years ago.”

“I’m sure that she would be glad that you are looking after her son,” Yang said.

Amelie’s face twisted into a bitter shape for a moment before smoothing over. “Perhaps. It seems like the least I can do.”

Yang decided to pull back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Reuenthal doesn’t like speaking about his family; I don’t want to invade his privacy.”

“You are an honest man,” Amelie said. “And a flaw of mine is that I’m inclined to be a gossip. It’s one of the few pleasures that ladies of the court have.”

“Learning things about the people around you is not necessarily a flaw. It could be an advantage,” Yang said. “But as you said, I have no reason to compete with Reuenthal, so I shouldn’t attempt to find out his secrets.”

“I’d hardly describe it as a secret,” Amelie said. She shook her head. “It was a sad business. Can I give you some advice, Hank?”

He felt distinctly uncomfortable, then. “Of course.”

“When you get married, please trust your wife.” She had a kind of distant look in her eyes. “That’s the most important thing.”

Yang didn’t know exactly what to say. Now, he wanted to escape. “Er, I don’t… Alright.”

His awkwardness broke the pall that was hanging over Amelie. “You’re too young to be thinking about such things, I suppose,” she said with a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

_ July, 476 IC, Odin _

Contrary to all his expectations, Yang found himself enjoying his summer with the Mariendorf family. Amelie was a vivacious woman, and she made it her mission to take Yang under her wing and teach him about the nature of life in the Imperial court. Even though Yang found meeting with nobles more tiresome than anything, he respected her expertise, and the fact that meeting with nobles was something he was going to have to get used to doing. 

He also gained a respect for the count, Franz, who he would often sit with after dinner and discuss history with. Franz was well read, intelligent, and astute, and he didn’t hold Yang’s words against him, merely asking cutting questions when Yang managed to voice an opinion on history or politics that swayed a little too heterodox. The Mariendorfs had a large library, which Yang perused at his leisure.

When he wasn’t inside reading, Yang developed a fast friendship with the youngest Mariendorf: the seven year old Hilde. He had never had much occasion to interact with children before, so he decided that the best way to make friends with her was to talk to her like an adult, and at the same time do whatever she told him to. This was a winning strategy, because seven year olds are at the exact age to understand that they want respect, yet not understand that someone giving them a piggy-back ride on demand is not exactly what respect is. Yang had endless patience for her, and, in turn, she developed a patience for him, and allowed him to teach her how to read long passages from the thick books he carried around, and she listened to him talk about history. She comprehended it enough to occasionally ask insightful questions. Sometimes, Yang would laugh and say something like, “Now, Fraulein Hilde, don’t say that to your father; he’ll think I’m turning you into some kind of republican.” 

In short, Hilde had Yang wrapped around her little finger.

On the rainiest day of the month, at around noon, Yang was in the kitchen of the Mariendorf manner. He had picked up Hilde and allowed her to sit on the big kitchen island, an indulgence that would not have been allowed if the butler or cook were around, but they were both out. The count was at Neue Sanssouci, and the countess was out visiting friends, which left just Yang and Hilde. He was making tea for himself, and the only thing that he could cook, which was sandwiches, for her.

“Now, Fraulein, how about you read to me. See where my bookmark is?”

Hilde obligingly opened the book that Yang pointed at as he put the kettle on the stove. She flipped through the book to Yang’s last place, and began to read in her childish, stumbling voice. 

“At that time, Rudolph von Goldenbaum was the commander of the Galactic Federation Arm… Arm…”

“Armada,” Yang supplied over the dinging of the toaster. He burned his fingers as he grabbed the toast directly out of it, blowing on them after he dropped the pieces heavily onto a plate. He slathered the toast with peanut butter, which melted immediately, and jelly, which did not, then stuck the two messy halves together.

“His most impressive accomplishment during this time was the destruction of the Main Street Pirates,” Hilde sounded out, then stopped. “Hank, are there pirates still?”

“Not really,” he said absentmindedly over the whistling of the kettle. “Only a little. It would be a dishonor to Rudolf von Goldenbaum’s good name to let pirates hang around the Empire, wouldn’t it?” He couldn’t keep the sarcastic tone out of his voice.

Hilde laughed. “Why do you talk like that?”

“Like what?” Yang asked, feigning ignorance.

As Yang was pouring himself a cup of tea, the doorbell rang. “Should I go answer that?” he asked.

Hilde put her plate with the nibbled-on sandwich down, then hopped off the kitchen island, sliding across the floor in her stockinged feet. “I’ll get it.”

Yang left his tea to steep and followed her at a more sedate pace. Hilde beat him to the door, and it was already open when he arrived. There was a rather soggy looking police officer standing on the doorstep, with his hat in his hand.

“Fraulein, is your father home?”

“No,” Hilde said.

Yang stepped up behind her. “Sir, would you like to come in and give me a message? Count Mariendorf isn’t expected to be back for several hours.”

“Are you part of the count’s staff?” he asked, looking Yang over.

“No, sir, I’m a guest of the count and his wife for the summer. Is this a matter that requires immediate attention? Count Mariendorf is at Neue Sanssouci, so I don’t think I can contact him. I can try to call the countess if it’s urgent.”

When Yang mentioned Amelie, a flicker passed over the sodden police officer’s face, and Yang understood. “Oh.” He looked down at Hilde. “Fraulein Hilde,” he said. “Can you do me a favor, please?”

She smiled up at him, not catching the implication of having a policeman at her door. “What?” she asked.

“There’s a book in your father’s library, it’s called  _ Steiner’s Military History of the Galactic Federation _ , can you get it for me?”

“Sure,” she said, and ran off, little feet thumping on the ground. Yang knew she wouldn’t find the book because it was in his guest bedroom on the bedside table. But it was a task that would keep her occupied, at least.

“Would you like to come in, sir?” Yang asked again. “Or would you like me to take a message for the count?” He held the door open and the policeman stepped inside. Yang led him to the drawing room. “I’ll try calling the count,” he said.

Yang called, several times to no avail. Franz Mariendorf was apparently busy, which would have been fine on any other day, but Yang had this specter of bad news sitting on his shoulders now. The policeman had apparently been told to give the news in person, so he was waiting, with Yang hovering around. When the butler and cook came home from their errands, Yang pulled them aside and told them the situation, as well as he understood it, which caused them both to blanch. 

Yang retrieved Hilde from the library, where she had gotten distracted with scribbling on a piece of paper with her father’s fountain pen, and brought her upstairs to where his guest bedroom was. She sat on his bed and watched him. The door was open so that Yang could hear down the stairs if the front door opened and the count arrived home.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Here,” Yang said, and pressed a book into her hands. “Can you read? I want to hear you read.”

“No,” she huffed. “What are you doing?”

“I need to pack my things,” he said, opening his dresser drawers and pulling his clothes out, stuffing them into his suitcase.

“Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

“I might have to go back to school,” Yang said. “Or stay at a hotel, or maybe with my friend Reuenthal.”

“You can’t stay with Oskar,” Hilde said, turning the pages of the book, looking for pictures.

“Why not?”

“His father is a bad man,” Hilde said, nonchalant. “And I want you to stay here. You’re my friend.”

“I might have to leave, Fraulein Hilde.”

“Why?”

Yang couldn’t answer that question without telling her the whole story, which he didn’t know the entirety of, and was certain he wasn’t supposed to do. “Your father might not want me to be here, right now.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t explain it, Fraulein Hilde,” he said. “Can you please read to me?”

And so she did, as Yang packed up his belongings and prepared to leave this place, not wanting to be an intruder to the Mariendorfs’ oncoming grief. When he finished packing, he sat on the bed next to Hilde, wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and helped her sound her way through the words, not processing the book’s contents at all, just staring into space. It had been a little over a year since his own father had died. How much harder would it be for a child of seven?

After some time, when the already grey and dim rainy light was growing dimmer from sunset, Yang heard a car pull up outside and the front door open. He stopped Hilde from reading, and brought her downstairs to speak to the count. He was shaking off his umbrella in the hall, and hanging up his jacket in the coat closet. The butler had also heard him come in, but saw Yang and Hilde approaching and stood back.

“Hilde!” Franz said, smiling when he saw her. “How’s my little girl?”

Hilde ran and hugged her father. As she was wrapping herself around his waist, Franz looked up and saw the serious look on Yang’s face.

“Sir, there’s someone waiting for you in the drawing room,” Yang said in a low tone. “Do you want me to take Fraulein Hilde while you speak to him?”

“What kind of someone?” Franz asked, disentangling himself from Hilde’s grasp. 

“A police officer, sir,” Yang said.

He could see the change come over Franz’s face in the dim entrance hall, and hear the crack in his voice. “Do you know what he’s come about?”

“I suspect, sir. But his message is for you.”

Franz nodded. “Hilde, in my coat pocket, I brought you a box of chocolates. How about you go share them with Hank in the kitchen. I’ll come talk to you later.”

Yang led Hilde to the kitchen, and let her eat all the chocolates, then let her scribble pictures on the butcher paper in the drawer, then showed her how to fold paper boats and float them in the sink, all while waiting for her father to come find her.

When he did, his eyes were red, and he looked as though he had aged approximately thirty years since that morning. Hilde picked up on his distress immediately, and looked frantically between her father and Yang, but Yang was already slipping out of the kitchen, not wanting to intrude on the father and daughter’s private grief.

He stood in the hallway and leaned his head backwards on the wall, closing his eyes and steadying his breath. He would wait to leave until he had spoken to the count, he decided. He should give him the courtesy of thanking him for his stay, and let him know that he was leaving.

“Hank,” Franz said when he came out of the kitchen, his voice sounding thick with emotion. “Thank you for taking care of Hilde.”

“Sir,” Yang said. “I… I’m so sorry.”

Franz gestured for Yang to follow him, and they entered his office. He sat down at his desk, his head in his hands. Yang stood stiffly in front of him for a second, then saw the decanter of brandy on a nearby table, and poured a single glass, placing it down in front of the count.

The count stared at it for a second, then picked it up, swirling it around and watching the liquid catch the light. He didn’t seem to want to speak, and Yang wasn’t sure what to do with his body or his hands. So his mouth moved instead.

“Sir…” he began, but the count waved at him to be silent and sit down, which Yang did, smoothing his hands over his pant legs. They sat in silence for a long time, Yang bearing witness to the count’s silent grief.

“Thank you for taking care of Hilde,” Franz said again.

“Is she alright?”

“No.”

Yang didn’t know how to say what he needed to say, feeling like he was dropping the words like a failed juggler. “I-- thank you for your hospitality, this summer-- I know-- I-- If you don’t want me here, I can go-- somewhere-- I don’t want--”

“No,” the count said. He shook his head. “You should stay. For Hilde, at least.”

* * *

_ July, 476 IC, Odin _

Yang stayed. Much like Boris Konev had helped him wade through the death of his father, Yang provided what he could to the Mariendorf family. He distracted Hilde. He offered a listening ear to the count. He helped the staff arrange for the funeral. He disappeared when he sensed that he needed to disappear. He was a steady presence when he needed to be present.

The funeral was on a sunny day, incongruously hot with the event. 

Reuenthal came. It was the first time Yang had seen him since school let out. They sat next to each other during the service, and when it was over, Reuenthal followed Yang back to the Mariendorf estate and spoke to the count privately for a little while. When that was done, Yang and Reuenthal took a long walk around the estate, the shadows growing long through the rustling pine trees.

At first, they were silent. Yang didn’t want to press Reuenthal, who looked terrible. He didn’t think that it was the funeral itself that made him appear so gaunt and empty-- he thought it was something else.

“Count Mariendorf thanked me for sending you here,” Reuenthal eventually said. “He says you’ve been a great help.” His voice was stiff.

“Reuenthal,” Yang said, not wanting to open any wounds. “Are you alright?”

Reuenthal laughed harshly, but said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Yang said.

“For once, von Leigh, this has nothing to do with you.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Please don’t ask that question,” Reuenthal said.

Yang stopped and looked at him. Reuenthal didn’t quite meet his eyes, and that was perhaps the worst change that had come over him. He was a different creature here, out of uniform, out of the only element that Yang had ever known him in. Yang understood that there was something terrible happening in Reuenthal’s house, something that he would never admit to or say out loud, and something that was probably only made worse by the death of his ally, the countess. Yang understood all of this, but couldn’t do anything to fix it. Reuenthal didn’t want him to fix it.

He could try to be cool and detached all he wanted, but it wasn’t working.

“Reuenthal,” Yang said. Some detached part of his mind registered that they were alone in the trees, far from the Mariendorf house. He couldn’t have said why he was paying attention to that. The other part of him reached out and grabbed Reuenthal, wrapping him in a hug. Reuenthal was stiff and unyielding at first, but then his arms found Yang’s back, and his head found Yang’s shoulder.

“I live in hell, Yang Wen-li,” Reuenthal said, so quiet that Yang almost didn’t hear.

Yang didn’t say anything, just held him for a long few seconds, until Reuenthal dropped his arms and detached himself. They walked out of the trees and back to the house in silence. Yang knew that they probably wouldn’t speak of this again, so he tucked the moment away into a corner of his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, little Hilde. Your mother is dead in canon so dead in fanfic she probably will also be. 
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. My original space opera also contains several dead mothers, as space operas are wont to do, for better or for worse: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	8. Chaffy Grain Beneath the Thresher's Flail

_ August, 476 IC, Odin _

Yang was eminently glad when school began again. It was an unfortunate, conflicted feeling, because the logical part of his mind still told him that he should not be happy about attending the IOA, but he was. He needed to escape the suffocating sadness of the Mariendorf household, he wanted to see Reuenthal be himself again, and he wanted to return his life to some kind of stable course.

He checked himself into his dorm and immediately set about seeing what his friends were up to. Wahlen and Bittenfeld had arrived, but Reuenthal had apparently decided that he was going to check in to school fashionably late. Yang checked his class schedule and the rankings, to make sure they hadn’t somehow shifted around over the summer. Everything was exactly as he remembered it, except he got to pin the sophomore pin on his cadet uniform. A thrilling upgrade.

He texted Eisenach, just to ask how his summer was, not really expecting a comprehensive answer.

< it was fine, yours?

< didn’t get into any trouble, did you?

> why, are you hoping I get kicked out so you don’t have to deal with my questions anymore?

< hahaha

> maybe this year I’ll get around to challenging you in chess, so you can thoroughly trounce me

< :)

< by the way, remember to contact your own mentee

< I look forward to seeing how that works out

> you going to vet my mentee like you vet my friends?

< hah. No. whoever this new guy is, he’s 100% your problem

< and take it from me, the #2 is always high strung

> I’m not high strung

< you have your own issues

Yang laughed and put his phone away. He obligingly opened the intranet and clicked on the class rankings for the incoming freshmen, grabbed the contact info for who was in the number two spot, then double checked the official mentee assignment email to be sure that he had the correct person. He typed out a quick letter.

_ Hello Mittermeyer, _

_ You probably got a note that you were being assigned a sophomore mentor. Congratulations, it’s me, Hank von Leigh. Everyone gets assigned the person who has the equivalent rank in the year above them. Lucky for you, I started in the number 2 spot and stayed there, so I’m very familiar with what that entails.  _

_ I don’t know how much help I can actually be to you, but I’m happy to give advice, or meet you, or whatever.  _

_ My own mentor has warned me that you might be high strung. If this is the case, I apologize in advance, because I am a lazy man and will not be able to deal with that. _

_ Your mentor, _

_ Hank von Leigh _

_ Military History Dept., Class of 479 _

He got a response a little later, as he was setting up his dorm room.

_ Hello von Leigh, _

_ Thank you for your welcome letter. I’d be happy to meet you and hear whatever advice you have to give.  _

_ It will be up to you to judge if I am high strung or not. I don’t believe that anyone who is would willingly self describe that way. _

_ What is a good time and place for you to meet? _

_ Thank you, _

_ Wolfgang Mittermeyer _

_ Engineering Dept., Class of 480 _

Yang raised an eyebrow at the signature on the response. Now that he had had a year of school experience, he understood why all his classmates had been so confused when he had introduced himself as belonging to the history department. It was probably about to be disastrous for his mentee, if he stayed in the engineering track and was put in the strategic warfare program like Yang had been. He rubbed the back of his head. On one hand, he hadn’t appreciated Eisenach telling him to drop history, but, on the other hand, it was the only reasonable advice one could give. 

He sent a reply to his mentee saying that they could meet in one of the student lounges tomorrow night, since the freshmen were about to have their convocation dinner. 

Then, he met up with his friends for their own dinner in the dining hall. It was good to see them again. 

* * *

The next night, around five, Yang headed to the student lounge where he was supposed to be meeting his mentee. He said he would wait by the pool tables, though, since he was almost pathetically bad at pool, that had been a bad choice. He lined up the balls on the table, then poked them around with the cue in a solo game, hoping that no one was watching him miss pretty much every shot. Since Reuenthal was good at pool, Yang was glad he was not around to judge. 

He was going to be meeting Reuenthal in about an hour, though, for the first session of the awful hand-to-hand class that Yang was still dragging himself along to. Why he continued to subject himself to that torture when he clearly wasn’t getting any better remained a mystery.

As Yang was attempting to line up a shot, he saw a young man walk into the lounge and look around. That must be his mentee. “Mittermeyer?” Yang called out.

The man’s head snapped up, and he smiled. He was blonde, about Yang’s height, and had what could be described as a winsome face. His smile really illuminated his whole expression. He came over to Yang, glancing at the state of the pool table.

“Von Leigh?”

“That’s me.” Yang stuck out his hand to shake, and Mittermeyer grasped it, seeming enthusiastic.

“May I play?”

“Get yourself a cue and I’ll set up. I’ll warn you that I’m terrible, though,” Yang said. 

“I don’t mind,” Mittermeyer said, and grabbed a cue from the rack on the wall. Yang set up the table, then let Mittermeyer go first. He was good at the game, and cleared about half the balls before missing a shot. Yang took his one turn, missed, and Mittermeyer went again.

“So,” Yang said. “Did you have any questions? I’m sorry, I’m not really sure how to be a mentor-- I never actually met with mine.”

“You said he thought I’d be high strung.”

“Well, I texted him a lot,” Yang said, rubbing the back of his head. Mittermeyer sunk the seven ball, then walked around the table. “He’s kind of a weird man.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Okay.”

Yang decided to bite the bullet and ask about the one thing he knew was going to be an issue for this new student: the engineering program. “Have you looked at your class schedule?” Yang asked.

“I did. It seems tough, but…” He shrugged, and hit the eight ball into the pocket. Yang retrieved all the balls and set the table up again. “I guess I didn’t expect anything different from such a selective place.”

Yang laughed a little. “Well, about that,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re in the engineering department, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, the thing is...” Yang bounced his cue up and down on his foot. “The top thirty or so students are all tracked together into the Strategic Warfare program, so that they can directly compete with each other in the ranks. Nobody ever expects somebody in the top group to be in one of the other departments-- history, engineering, admin, whatever. So you were put in the SW program, and in the engineering program.”

“That happened to you? You’re in the history program, right?”

“Yeah. It did.”

“And what did you do about it?”

“Er… Nothing?” Yang said. “I took the classes.”

Mittermeyer looked at him. “Okay.”

“Do you want to hear the advice that I failed to take back then?”

“Something your weird mentor told you?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said.

“You should drop engineering, and focus on the SW program.”

Mittermeyer sighed and missed his next shot. “Why?”

“The SW program is where the prestige is,” Yang said. “Most people, I’ve been told, care about that kind of thing.”

“You don’t?”

Yang smiled. “For a person like me, caring about prestige is liable to get me in more trouble than it is to earn me any respect. I can have number two, but not number one.”

Mittermeyer frowned deeply. He seemed aggrieved on Yang’s behalf. “That’s not…”

Yang shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“You have a noble name, though,” Mittermeyer said. Yang was caught so off guard by that that he snort-laughed. “What?”

“Having a ‘von’ in your name does not always mean very much,” Yang said.

“I don’t want to ask rude questions,” Mittermeyer said.

“That just means that you do want to ask rude questions, but you don’t want to be rude,” Yang said. “I’m from Phezzan. My mother had her way with a merchant.” It was a true enough lie.

Mittermeyer smiled. “I see.”

“But back to engineering. I’m not particularly good at math, but I get the impression that the engineering courses are probably harder than the history ones. Or maybe I’m just very good at history. I do recommend you drop it, though.”

“I can’t,” Mittermeyer said.

“You have a passion for it?” Yang asked.

Again, Mittermeyer sighed a little. “No.”

“Then you should definitely drop it.”

“My father’s an engineer,” he said. “The only reason I was allowed to come here was that I said I would join the engineering corps.”

“Hm.” Yang drummed his fingers on the cue. “Can I give you some very bad advice, then?”

Mittermeyer raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

“The class that counts the most towards your rank is the SW practicum. If you do badly in your engineering classes, just for one semester maybe, you can convince your family that it’s worth letting you be free of them. But as long as you do well in the practicum, you should still be okay.”

“That does sound like terrible advice.”

“Like I said,” Yang said, “I’m a lazy man. Often, the best course to victory is the one that involves the least amount of work.”

“That sounds more like a truism than the truth.”

“Well…” Yang said, and shrugged expressively.

“What’s the practicum like, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it difficult?”

“I guess that depends on your definition of difficult, and how good your classmates are.” Yang described the practicum to Mittermeyer in great detail. When Mittermeyer missed a couple shots in the pool game, Yang just waved at him to play alone, which he did, while still astutely listening to Yang’s description of the class.

“So there’s no way to practice?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I think there might be some computer sims that you can play against, but Staden really loves the human moderated experience. The class itself is supposed to be the practice.”

“Oh.” Mittermeyer sounded disappointed by this. 

“Why, you want to study outside of class?”

“If you really think that I should put all my hopes into that one class, and do really well at it so that I can drop the others, I probably should.”

Yang backpedaled. “I didn’t think you were actually going to take that advice!”

“Then why did you give it?”

“It’s what I would do if someone was forcing me to take engineering classes,” Yang said with a laugh. “But nobody should ever do anything that I do. Or that I say, for that matter.”

“You’re inimitable?”

“No, I’m a disaster!”

Mittermeyer laughed loudly. “I’m glad that I at least have an honest mentor.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been stuck with me.”

“No, you’ve been very helpful so far,” Mittermeyer said. “Thank you. And, besides, you can’t be that bad-- you are number two, after all.”

“I keep expecting that not to last,” Yang said. “Look, Mittermeyer, if you do want to practice outside of class-- hold on, let me text a couple people.”

Mittermeyer looked at Yang curiously as he pulled out his phone. Yang texted basically everyone he spoke to on a regular basis: Reuenthal, Bittenfeld, Wahlen, and Eisenach (though ‘spoke’ was a bit of an exaggeration in Eisenach’s case).

> does anyone feel like they’re really dying for more practice at strats

Bittenfeld: < why do you ask

> my mentee wants extra practice. I’ll GM but I need someone to play him against

Eisenach: < who are all you people

Eisenach: < also i warned you he would be high strung

> he doesn’t seem high strung

> you can’t blame him for this

> this was my suggestion

Wahlen: < von leigh going above and beyond in the line of duty lol

Wahlen: < how long would you expect this to take?

> i don’t know. Probably the first game would be pretty short

Reuenthal: < I’ll play him

Bittenfeld: < oh you’ll crush von leigh’s little mentee

Bittenfeld: < so cruel

Wahlen: < if Reuenthal’s playing, I’ll help you GM

> thanks everyone

Eisenach: < if you’re playing games outside of class, von leigh, I want to match you

Eisenach: < who will gm that?

> that wasn’t really what I was trying to set up…

Bittenfeld: < is this a thing? Are you all doing this?

Bittenfeld: < if so I want in

Bittenfeld: < I’ll gm you’re match against whoever that is in this group

Eisenach: < this is eisenach, the jr #2

Wahlen: < what time is this happening?

> I don’t know, let me figure this out, calm down

Reuenthal: < you shouldn’t have asked everyone if you didn’t want this to happen

Yang could practically feel Reuenthal’s smirk through the phone. He shoved it back in his pocket before anyone could text him again.

“What was that all about?” Mittermeyer asked, cognizant of the flood of text messages that Yang had gotten.

“I asked a couple of my friends to set up a game so that you can get some extra practice,” Yang said. “What time is a good time for you to play?”

“My schedule’s free. Whenever, as long as it’s not during class. Weekday nights, or weekends after the physicals.”

“All right, I’ll let you know when.”

“Thank you,” Mittermeyer said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Yang said. “This might end up being a painful experience.”

“Why?” Mittermeyer asked.

“You’re probably going to lose, immediately and hard. Nothing on you, I mean, Reuenthal is just really good, and he’s had a year of practice.”

“Who is Reuenthal?” Mittermeyer asked.

“The fresh-- no, we’re sophomores now-- my class’s number one.”

“Oh, cool, I guess I’ll have a lot to learn from him, then.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty great,” Yang said. “Don’t tell him I said that.” Mittermeyer laughed. 

“Don’t want to inflate his ego?”

Yang laughed. “No. He’d just make an infuriating expression at me.”

“I see.”

Yang glanced at the clock. It was almost six. “Look, Mittermeyer, I’ve gotta go-- I have a hand-to-hand class.” He cringed as he said this. “I’ll let you know when we can meet, and, you know, feel free to text me with whatever questions you have.”

“Sure. I look forward to whatever practice you’re setting up. I really do appreciate it.” He stuck out his hand for Yang to shake, and they shook again. “See you later.” 

Yang felt Mittermeyer’s eyes on him as he left, though it wasn’t an unfriendly look.

* * *

The time that they decided upon was Saturday afternoon, after mandatory physicals and lunch. Although some (Bittenfeld) had grumbled about wasting a perfectly good Saturday afternoon, Yang had pointed out that all they would be doing was either hanging out or doing homework anyway, so it hardly made a difference to play a game during that time. Eisenach had somehow managed to wrestle his way into having swipe card access to a training room in one of the academic buildings, so they met there in privacy, rather than having to exist in the public eye of the library or on the green.

Yang made the introductions to everyone. “Er, everyone, this is Mittermeyer, my mentee. Mittermeyer, this is Reuenthal, Bittenfeld, Wahlen, Eisenach.” Mittermeyer shook hands with everyone.

The group was in high spirits as they entered the training room, and Yang directed everyone to their seats, feeling rather like he was herding cats. To the people who were not playing or GMing (which for the first game would be Eisenach and Bittenfeld), Yang set them up to observe the match, and put Reuenthal and Mittermeyer on opposite sides of the room so that they couldn’t turn around and see each other. Since this wasn’t a real class, it obviously didn’t matter that they knew who was playing, but being able to see their opponent’s face and reactions would be too much information. As long as no one spoke, Yang believed the game would go pretty smoothly.

Yang hadn’t had a ton of time to create a scenario himself, so he had looked through past years’ freshman game transcripts, and picked out one that seemed like it would give Mittermeyer a slight advantage, while not being too complicated or unfair in the other direction. Unusually, he chose a space-based game, because he thought it would be easier for Mittermeyer to deal with. Space games were, for the most part, pure tactics, and the only thing that was more complicated about them than land battles was the full three dimensionality. 

Mittermeyer had a slightly smaller force in the scenario, but an easier win condition: this was a timed game, so all he had to do was hold out at a star system until his reinforcements arrived. Reuenthal could win by wiping Mittermeyer out, or forcing him to retreat.

Yang explained all of this to Mittermeyer, as well as how to send his commands, and the various complicated rules about timestamping and how Yang and Wahlen would decide the results of actions, then began the game.

Immediately, it was clear that Mittermeyer had a sharp grasp of the situation. For the entertainment of Bittenfeld and Eisenach, Yang kept up a running commentary on how he thought the game was progressing. He described what he thought Reuenthal was going to do, what he would have done in Reuenthal or Mittermeyer’s place, and what Mittermeyer should do if he wanted to counter or circumvent Reuenthal’s actions.

“Obviously, the first thing that Reuenthal’s going to do is information gathering. If Mittermeyer is smart, he’ll station a few ships around the system, to catch any of Reuenthal’s advance scouts, jam their communications, and wipe them out. That would force Reuenthal to come in blind,” Yang typed. 

Sure enough, Reuenthal sent out his scouts. At first, Mittermeyer didn’t realize the scouts were approaching, but by pure chance, one set of them stumbled near enough to the main body of his fleet that he intercepted them. With that, he split off forces to search and destroy the rest. Although it was a little late at that point, it was better than nothing, and the only information that Reuenthal was able to get from his scouts was the position of Mittermeyer’s fleet in the system, based on the fact that his first scout group had stopped responding before the others had.

Mittermeyer picked up on this subtle fact, and tried to use it to his advantage, splitting his force (which made Yang cringe), and leaving a small detachment where he had been spotted, taking the other part further away, hoping to do a half-encirclement of Reuenthal as he entered the system.

Reuenthal wasn’t one to be surprised by that kind of thing, though, and when he realized that the small force in the expected position was just bait, he moved in slowly, waited for Mittermeyer’s main fleet to show itself, then turned and attempted to break through their center.

“If I were Mittermeyer,” Yang said, “since Reuenthal’s going to break open his center anyway, I’d try to let him through and get around his backside. That would let him closer to the planet, but that detached force can go in between. If he can coordinate it right…”

And that was exactly what Mittermeyer did. The fight turned into a kind of acrobatic dance. Yang could predict Reuenthal pretty well at this point, and it seemed somehow that Mittermeyer could as well-- their movements seemed to be scarily in synch with each other, even though they were fighting. Mittermeyer was perhaps a little clumsier, having had no practice with this style of game, but he more than made up for it with his precience.

The fight dragged on. Reuenthal had the upper hand, and he was slowly grinding Mittermeyer down. Neither side wanted to retreat, but they also didn’t know exactly when Mittermeyer’s reinforcements were going to show up (that was knowledge that only the GMs had), so every move they made, they had to weigh their options of sticking it out for a little longer and risking destruction. Mittermeyer risked Reuenthal grinding him into nothing, and Reuenthal risked the reinforcements showing up and overpowering him.

Mittermeyer turned out to be the one to retreat first, pulling his forces out to the edge of the starzone, and letting Reuenthal have the planet. It was a loss, but a narrow one. If he had held on for twelve more hours of in game time, his reinforcements would have arrived.

“I can’t fault you for that,” Yang said, as he ended the game. “I probably would have done the same thing.”

Reuenthal turned his chair around and smiled at Mittermeyer. “Good game.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mittermeyer said. 

“Do you want to know the secret to winning this?” Reuenthal asked.

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said. “They’re not going to reuse this exact game type in class, though, are they?”

“Not an exact one,” Yang said. “What are you about to tell him?”

“The same thing I told you,” Reuenthal said. “You have to remember what level you’re playing the game on.”

“What do you mean?” Mittermeyer asked.

“This isn’t real,” Reuenthal said. “If this was a real battle, it obviously would be best for you to retreat and meet up with your allies. That way you could come back and recapture this whole place, taking it easily against me, since I’m now much weaker after a prolonged fight. It would, in fact, be suicidal of me to stay without reinforcements of my own arriving, so while you retreated, I should have chased you and tried to destroy you before you could meet up with your friends. That way, even if I can’t hold the starzone, your overall force would be weaker.” Reuenthal smiled. “I’m sure you were thinking about all those real logistics.”

Mittermeyer nodded. “Some of them.”

“But this isn’t real. You retreated, so you lost. It’s really a very simple game, when it comes down to it.”

“Don’t let him psych you out,” Yang said. “I have the same internal struggle every time I play.”

“He gets lost in the fantasy,” Reuenthal said. “And then Staden yells at him.”

“Once,” Yang said. “I probably won’t do that again.”

“Probably.”

Yang kicked back in his chair and put his feet on the desk, which made Eisenach swat at him, apparently worried about getting the practice room tables dirty. “It’s stupid, though,” Yang said absently. “If you think like that, I think you’re setting yourself up for bad habits in the future. When there’s actual people on the line, and real stakes, not just points.”

“I don’t know,” Bittenfeld said. “I think I play the game the same as I would act.”

Wahlen sighed. “Of course you do. But maybe you shouldn’t.”

“So, what are you saying, that the SW classes are useless?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Not useless,” Yang and Reuenthal said at the same second, which made them both smile.

“I think they do a decent job of separating the wheat from the chaff,” Reuenthal said.

“They’re good at some things. Forcing you to develop situational awareness, quick decision making, adapting to other people’s ways of thinking. At least in the top level SW class,” Yang said.

“The problem isn’t people who play the game as though it’s real,” Reuenthal said. “They’re probably fine, if wasting their time. The problem is people who learn that the best way to treat reality is like a game.”

“Stop lecturing the kid,” Bittenfeld said. “You’ve already crushed his spirit enough for today.”

Eisenach leaned forward on his chair, pointed at Yang, then himself. “You want to play me?” Yang asked. When Eisenach nodded, Yang said, “Did anyone prep a second scenario?”

“Of course I did,” Bittenfeld said. “I told you I would GM.”

“Great,” Yang said, though he had half been hoping that Bittenfeld would say no, so that he wouldn’t have to play. Games always took so long, and he liked GMing more than he liked playing. “Mittermeyer, you want to GM with Bittenfeld?”

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said.

“You’d better win,” Reuenthal said to Yang.

“Why?”

“If you don’t, I’ll have to play Eisenach, to reclaim the honor of the sophomore class.”

Yang laughed. “I’ll dedicate my victory to you, then,” Yang said.

“Strong words, when you haven’t even seen the situation,” Bittenfeld said with a grin. “I picked it out just for you.”

Yang grimaced. “Just set it up. I don’t want to be here all night.”

They got the game open on their computers, and Yang looked over the starting conditions. “Seriously, Bittenfeld?” he asked.

“No talking,” Wahlen said.

“I picked it out just for youuuu.”

“You have Eisenach at a disadvantage,” Reuenthal said, leaning over Bittenfeld’s shoulder. “How unsporting of you.”

“No talking!” Wahlen said again, this time more forcefully. Reuenthal smirked and sat back down.

The situation was far from the usual ones that they played in class. It was a land battle, which wasn’t that strange, but this time, rather than tanks or airplanes or stationary artillery, Yang’s forces were horseback archers, a calvary riding across the plains of Asia, the image akin to something taken straight out of ancient Earth history.

Bittenfeld typed, “I’m trying to prepare you for this year’s hunting trip. Don’t want Deitch to almost murder you again.”

“What?” Mittermeyer typed.

“@Mittermeyer, I’ll explain later. @Bittenfeld, this is hardly going to help with that,” Yang sent to the GMs.

“It is funny, though,” Eisenach typed, and one of the GMs let the message through to Yang. “Let’s just get started. I’m anxious to test my mentee’s abilities.”

Yang rolled his eyes, but began to issue the commands to scout the situation and organize his troops. Reuenthal was right that he did have the upper hand; unless Eisenach had some kind of heretofore unknown vast trove of historical warfare knowledge in his head, Yang was far more familiar with the tactics and capabilities of historical calvaries. 

The situation he found himself in was not real, but it was based on ancient Mongolian armies. Yang and Eisenach had approximately the same troop strength in armies comprised mostly of light archers on horseback: highly mobile, highly self sufficient, and the most powerful conquering force that had existed in the world at the time.

Bittenfeld had chosen a scenario with the simplest win condition: one side must beat the other to win. Maybe he thought that would make it a purer contest. Either that, or he thought that dealing with the logistics of calvary was enough of a challenge, and having to protect fortifications or a civilian population would be too much of an annoyance.

It made life easy for Yang, though, because he devised a strategy that again took advantage of the fact that this was a game. The plains of Asia were not endless in reality, but they could be for Yang.

He started running, driving his troops across the plains, and burning everything behind him. Eisenach would have no grass on which to feed his horses. He would engage Eisenach in little skirmishes, often at night, trying to take out as many horses as he could, sending in small, fresh bands of soldiers every night to harry Eisenach’s troops. They would get in, kill as many as they could, then escape as quickly as possible.

Eisenach was forced to follow Yang’s hellish pace, play by his rules, even as his calvary grew slower and weaker from lack of food and rest. Eisenach couldn’t push his soldiers faster, to get ahead of Yang and cut him off, and even when he tried to sneak up on Yang during the night, Yang was able to catch him out and defeat him.

Eventually, when Yang decided that this torture had gone on long enough, he engaged the much-weakened Eisenach in open combat, and he surrendered in fairly short order.

“Good game,” Eisenach typed. “If I had been quicker on the uptake, I could have used that strategy against you.”

“I’ll take you up on your offer to play chess,” Yang said aloud. “Then you can redeem your honor.”

Bittenfeld was unhappy. “That was pretty much the most boring way you could have won,” he complained.

Yang shrugged apologetically. “It seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

“How did you like it, Mittermeyer?” Reuenthal asked. “Seeing the master at work.”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “Master?”

Reuenthal laughed.

“It was pretty elegant,” Mittermeyer said. “You kept things in order when you retreated. That doesn’t look easy.”

“It’s one of those things that’s easier in the game than it probably would be in life. But I guess in life I’m not going to be commanding horseback troops, so it’s fine.”

“You just wait until the hunt,” Bittenfeld said. “It’ll be the most dangerous game out there.”

“You are not hunting your classmates for sport,” Wahlen said. He seemed to be willing to take on the responsibility of being Bittenfeld’s impulse control.

“They started it.”

Mittermeyer leaned towards Yang and quietly asked, “What are they arguing about?”

Reuenthal heard the question and said in his dry tone, “Every year, the Kaiser invites the top students from each class on a hunt at Neue Sanssouci. Last year, someone decided that Leigh was more of an enticing target than the deer were.”

“I’m just not going to go,” Yang said. “I’m terrible at horseback riding.”

Mittermeyer looked righteously angry. “You got shot?”

“It’s fine,” Yang said, and laid a hand on Mittermeyer’s arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You can’t exactly refuse an invitation from the Kaiser,” Wahlen said.

“Watch me.” Yang knew that was an empty threat. He probably would have to go, though he wasn’t looking forward to it. “Anyway, it’s not like anyone’s tried anything since then. I highly doubt there will be any trouble.” He shook his head and attempted to bring the conversation back to order. “Well. Good games, everybody. Thank you all for volunteering.”

“We should do this again,” Bittenfeld said. “I want to match you.” He pointed at Eisenach, who nodded. “Next Saturday?”

“I thought you didn’t want to give up your Saturday,” Reuenthal said.

“It’s more fun when I get to play.”

The group gathered their belongings and headed to dinner, chatting amicably about the matches and agreeing to meet up the next week. 

Later, Yang and Reuenthal sat outside on the green, in the last dregs of the August sun. Yang had a book open in front of him, but he wasn’t really paying any attention to it. He was leaning back on the grass and staring up at the bright red clouds of sunset above him.

“What did you think of my mentee?” Yang asked.

“I like him,” Reuenthal said.

“That’s high praise, coming from you.” Reuenthal made a noncommittal noise. “What?” Yang asked.

“Am I not allowed to say that?”

“You usually don’t.”

“He has good intuition.”

Yang nodded. “I thought so, too. You should read the game transcript-- I kept up a little commentary.”

“I look forward to doing so.”

They were silent for a little bit. Yang glanced around the green-- there was no one else in sight, so he felt a little more confident in broaching the next subject. He didn’t want to come up on the topic of the summer directly, but he felt he needed to address it somehow. “Reuenthal, am I allowed to ask if you’re okay?”

Reuenthal laughed, maybe at the suddenness of the question, or at Yang’s odd phrasing, but it wasn’t really a happy sound. “You’re allowed to ask.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Pity is a poisonous emotion,” Reuenthal said. “And I find it unpleasant to be around people who insist upon feeling it.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t pity you for things that you refuse to speak about.”

“I’m certain that you can. Especially since you stayed with the countess.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Not you.”

“When the subject came up, I stopped her before she told me anything.”

“You’re such a gentleman.”

“And a scholar,” Yang tried to say, but the joke fell flat. There was a long moment of silence.

“There is nothing that you need to worry about,” Reuenthal said. “I’m fine.”

“If you ever…” Yang said, and ripped up a fistful of grass. “You know. I would do anything I could for you.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“You might make a liar out of yourself.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You wouldn’t do something against your nature,” Reuenthal said after a moment. “That’s all I mean.”

“And what would be against my nature in helping a friend?”

“Don’t worry about it, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said, then stood. “I talk too much.” The sun had slipped behind the buildings and cast them both into deep shadow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mittermeyer's here! Mittermeyer's here! I love him! He's here!
> 
> Title is a line from the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, chosen because at one point someone in here says something about the SW games separating the wheat from the chaff, and also because the historical "Kubla Khan" was a leader of the mongol empire, and the cavalry game is based on that sort of thing. Literally this is the most obscure line I could have picked but this is the type of person that I am.
> 
> Thank ye to Lydia for the beta read. Once again, there's absolutely zero cavalry battles in my original space opera that you can read right here: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	9. Turning Saints into the Sea

_ August-October, 476 IC, Odin _

Mittermeyer inserted himself smoothly into Yang’s friend group. At first, it was only the Saturday meetings where they played games against each other, but then he started sitting with Yang and Reuenthal at dinner every night, and in the afternoons and evenings coming to study with them. Yang wasn’t sure if it was he or Reuenthal who had actually invited Mittermeyer, or if Mittermeyer had just decided to show up, but he was a welcome addition to the group.

He didn’t end up following Yang’s advice about intentionally flunking his engineering courses, which meant that he spent a lot of time studying. In some ways, Mittermeyer took the opposite advice: he relied on his natural intuition, tutoring from Yang and Reuenthal, and extra practice to succeed at the SW program courses, while he devoted most of his actual academic struggle to pushing through engineering.

“Maybe I can tell my father that I gave engineering a good solid attempt, and that I hated it,” Mittermeyer said as he churned his way through a particularly nasty physics homework assignment. He had no natural talent or love for the subject, but he was a hard worker, rather the opposite of Yang, in that respect. “He might let me quit, then.”

“It’s unfortunate that you’re so tied to being honest,” Reuenthal said. “I find life is far easier when my father knows nothing.”

“It would be uncharacteristic of me to start lying now, unfortunately,” Mittermeyer said absentmindedly as he scribbled something down on his paper.

“Should I be worried that your corrupt morals are going to negatively influence my mentee?” Yang asked.

Reuenthal smiled, a grin that seemed to hold more in it than just a refutation of Yang’s question. “Perhaps.”

Life was filled with little moments like that. Yang was very glad to have gathered a group of friends around him. He hadn’t realized how lonely he had been, during that first part of freshman year when no one was willing to associate with him.

Having Mittermeyer around alleviated some of the odd tension that had sprung up between Yang and Reuenthal, the strange push and pull of unspoken boundaries that Yang couldn’t explain or put a finger on. Having another person in the room broke some of that spell, and, though Reuenthal couldn’t be described as open, it was a kind of improvement. 

Occasionally, though, Yang had the nagging thought that he was glad he had met and become friends with Reuenthal first, because there was something about the way that he spoke to Mittermeyer that gave Yang pause. But then he would shake himself out of it and think that no, Reuenthal spoke to him like that as well, this was just the first time he had seen it with someone else. It was like looking through a window, but half catching his own reflection in the glass.

August was hot, September was beautiful, but October brought cold rain and winds sweeping through their part of Odin. Although Yang had jokingly threatened to boycott the annual hunt for top students at Neue Sanssouci, he knew he couldn’t, so he reluctantly attended.

As they rode the bus, Bittenfeld leaned over the back of Yang’s seat and kept up a continuous stream of jokes, excited banter about the hunt, and aspersions cast onto the rest of their classmates.

“You know, von Leigh, I have the worst habit,” Bittenfeld said.

“What’s that?” Yang asked.

“Not knowing how to shut up,” Reuenthal said, which made Bittenfeld laugh.

“No. I always manage to convince myself to stay up half the night laying curses on people I hate, and then in the morning, I’m shocked that they’re still alive.” As he said this, he glared down the bus to where Deitch and his company were sitting. He made sure to say all this loud enough that they could hear, but, as usual, he was steadfastly ignored.

“Maybe you just weren’t cursing them hard enough,” Mittermeyer said. He had abandoned his own classmates and come to sit with the sophomores on the bus, though the same could not be said of Eisenach, who, along with all the rest of the juniors, was pretending not to know anyone in the years below them existed.

“Me? Laying curses by half-measures?” Bittenfeld asked. “Never.”

“Please stop cursing people,” Yang said. “Even if it has no noticeable effect, I’m sure it’s giving you a headache.”

“See, the real problem is, the headache makes me think it’s working.”

“If you say so,” Yang said, shaking his head. Although he liked Bittenfeld, he could not pretend to understand the man.

Once they made it to Neue Sanssouci, they lined up in the reception hall once again. Yang’s confidence was bolstered by Eisenach in front of him, Reuenthal to his left, Wahlen (who had managed to snatch the number three spot temporarily) to his right, and Mittermeyer behind his left shoulder (having jumped up to be the freshman number one). 

As he had before, Kaiser Friedrich IV came into the hall and spoke to them. He gave perfunctory greetings to the seniors and juniors, but he stopped at the sophomores after exchanging a few words with Reuenthal.

“Hank von Leigh, isn’t it?” Though the kaiser phrased this as a question, he clearly knew exactly who he was speaking to. His eyes had a sharp glint in them.

“Yes, sir,” Yang said, dying inside. He tried to keep his face a cool mask.

“Count Mariendorf speaks highly of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“This year you will avoid needing the services of my personal physician, I trust?”

“I will try, sir.”

“Yes. I must hope that all my most promising future officers survive their school days.” The kaiser glanced down the line of sophomores as he said this, all of whom kept staring straight ahead, despite the unusual conversation that Yang was having. Yang couldn’t tell if this would encourage or discourage his fellow students from attempting foul play. After all, he suspected that it had been the kaiser’s words to him last year that had incited the violence.

Mittermeyer then got his chance to speak with the kaiser, which he handled well, and the students were sent to breakfast.

Wahlen leaned towards Yang as they walked towards the dining hall. “First, you’re of use to the fatherland, now you’re a promising future officer that a count speaks highly of. Seems like the kaiser likes you.”

“It’s not a good thing to stand out,” Yang said. “I’d prefer it greatly if the kaiser wasn’t thinking about me at all.”

“I think you should play the hand you’re given, Leigh,” Wahlen said. “Because it seems like you’ve got a good one.”

Yang frowned, though he nodded, if only to make Wahlen stop worrying about it.

After the breakfast, they began the hunt. The day was cold and drizzly, in the way that some fall days change between mists and light rain without warning and constantly. Yang was physically stronger than he had been the year before, which made horse riding a little easier, but he hadn’t actually practiced, so he was still very slow, riding a tawny mare out of the stables with his bow on his lap. At first, he was surrounded by the whole pack of his friends, but, unsurprisingly, Bittenfeld got distracted and galloped off, followed by Wahlen to keep him company and out of trouble. Eisenach decided he would rather stay with the juniors, and so that left just Yang, Reuenthal, and Mittermeyer riding through the woods after an hour or so.

Yang was chilled and damp, but since they couldn’t leave (potential injuries notwithstanding), they remained out, walking their horses through the forest quietly. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer seemed both intent on actually catching a deer, as well as being prepared for other students to come out of nowhere and cause trouble.

Reuenthal held up his hand silently, then pointed through the trees. There, barely visible through the lingering foliage, was what looked like at first branches moving up and down. But as Yang looked more closely, he saw that it was the antlers of a deer. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer looked at each other, communicating more in a single glance than they needed to with words, and peeled off from Yang, each taking one side of a wide circle around the deer. Both of them glanced back at Yang, though at different moments, Mittermeyer with a look of mild concern that they were leaving Yang behind, and Reuenthal with a slight nod for Yang to bring his horse forward through the middle.

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer seemed to move in perfect silence and synchronicity, until they both vanished from Yang’s sight. Yang nudged his horse forward, knowing that Reuenthal wanted him to be the center of this charge and usher the deer towards them. He didn’t try to ride quietly, and the deer picked its head up. Yang pushed forward a little more, the deer started away from him towards the two waiting hunters.

Yang drove it forward a little, and then, without him even seeing where Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were hiding, two arrows flew from either direction, both striking home in its chest. The deer jumped, then ran. Yang spurred his own horse forward, acting on instinct now, not wanting to lose it while Reuenthal and Mittermeyer remounted. 

He followed the deer at some distance, watching it grow slower and slower. His own horse was trampling over leaves spotted with fresh blood. Part of him wanted to raise his own bow and kill it more quickly, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to make enough of a fatal shot. Eventually, the deer’s legs folded beneath it, and it crumpled to the ground. Yang was alone with it. It still breathed, shallowly, blood bubbling out from the arrow wounds in its chest with every breath. Its eyes were wide and panicked. 

He dismounted his horse clumsily, feeling his legs like foreign objects after so long in the saddle, and looked around for the hunting knife he knew was in the saddlebags somewhere. He fully intended to kill the deer-- it was better than having it bleed out-- though he didn’t enjoy the thought. He wished that they hadn’t encountered the thing, and that the three of them could have just enjoyed their ride through the woods without violence. He found and unsheathed the knife, coming up next to the deer and crouching down next to it.

Better to end the violence as painlessly as possible, wasn’t it?

Its head was on the ground, now, too weak to hold itself up. As Yang considered the most optimal way to drive the knife, the buck stopped breathing. So, he had been too late. Somehow, he felt worse about this than if he had been able to do something.

Yang stood again and waited for Mittermeyer and Reuenthal to come. They did after a minute or so, apparently having had trouble finding him. They both were in high spirits, smiling and looking at each other, and Yang put on a smile and congratulated them. 

* * *

Along with the actual spoils of their hunt (which someone on the staff at Neue Sanssouci butchered and prepared for them, and which they had sent half to Mittermeyer’s family home, and half to Count Mariendorf’s, seeing as the three students had no actual use for the meat and other assorted trophies), they were presented with a bottle of whiskey for being the first students to successfully hunt a deer that day.

By the time they returned to the IOA on the bus, Yang’s spirits had risen considerably. After all, nothing bad had happened. He had been on edge all day, and finally stepping off the bus in the drizzling evening was a relief. The tension and weird feeling that had been lingering over him dissipated in the bright familiarity of the dorms.

“Shall we celebrate?” Reuenthal asked, holding up the bottle.

“It’s your prize,” Yang said. “If you want to share, I certainly won’t refuse.”

“You helped,” Mittermeyer said. “You chased it down.” Yang appreciated Mittermeyer’s desire to give him undue credit.

“Come on,” Reuenthal said. “It really doesn’t matter.” He led them up to his dorm room and let them in.

Reuenthal’s room was spotless and classy, quite unlike Yang’s. Second year students were afforded a bookshelf, which Reuenthal had decorated with interesting knickknacks: a whorled piece of driftwood, a small bronze cast statue that reminded Yang of something his father might have collected, a huge chunk of copper and pyrite rock, and other things of that nature. On his walls were a few prints of famous paintings, including one that had given Yang pause the first time he had been in Reuenthal’s room.

“Why do you have a painting of Kaiser Kaspar I on your wall?” Yang had asked. The painting in question showed a young man, in his early twenties maybe, with delicate features, sitting almost casually, his legs crossed, leaning with his elbow on the chair’s elaborately carved arm. Kaspar was smiling, a weird, small smile, though he wasn’t looking directly out at the viewer. Behind him were heavy red velvet drapes decorated with the insignia of the Goldenbaum dynasty. If one looked closely, one could see in among the drapes, just past Kaspar’s left shoulder, someone else’s arm and hand. It was a strange image.

“It’s a nice picture,” Reuenthal had said, a little too delicately. “Am I not allowed to have a favorite Kaiser?”

Yang had laughed. “I suppose, as favorites go, you could do worse. He abdicated before he could cause any trouble. That’s about the best we can hope for.” Reuenthal had just smiled at that.

Now, Yang hardly noticed the painting and just sat down on Reuenthal’s desk chair, pulling his knees up to his chest. Mittermeyer hesitated fractionally, then sat on Reuenthal’s bed as Reuenthal himself opened his closet and pulled out a set of glasses from the top shelf.

He poured them all some of the alcohol, left the open bottle on his desk, then sat down next to Mittermeyer.

“To Oskar von Reuenthal and Wolfgang Mittermeyer,” Yang said, raising his glass. “Congratulations.”

“And to Hank von Leigh,” Mittermeyer said.

Yang couldn’t help but meet Reuenthal’s eyes at that moment. “To Hank von Leigh,” Reuenthal said, but the humor in his tone and the twist of a smile around his eyes comforted Yang. Reuenthal was playing along with the joke for his sake. Yang could have told Mittermeyer his small secret, but there was no need to make this evening about him. He would probably tell him the truth someday, since he trusted his mentee and friend, but not now.

“Prosit to us all, then,” Yang said with a roll of his eyes.

“Prosit!” Reuenthal and Mittermeyer said in unison, then leaned forward to clink their glasses on Yang’s.

The alcohol was warm inside of Yang, and after his second drink he shrugged off his dress uniform jacket, draping it over the chair back. The atmosphere was relaxed.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t play a match today,” Mittermeyer was saying. “Wahlen was going to play me next.”

“You’d beat him,” Reuenthal said. “You’re better than he is.”

“That’s not the point,” Mittermeyer said.

“I don’t know why you like playing so much,” Yang said. “GMing is way more interesting.”

Reuenthal shook his head. “I think all the studying history has permanently changed the shape of your brain, to make you like the strangest things.”

Yang didn’t take offense. “It’s only strange compared to people here. You don’t think most other people wouldn’t prefer not to make war?”

“We’re not like most other people,” Reuenthal said, again with the tone that Yang had come to associate with Reuenthal speaking on two levels at once.

“You’re in the wrong school,” Mittermeyer said. “How did you even get here?”

“Long story,” Yang said.

“You must be a chronically unlucky man, to have talent for something you don’t even enjoy,” Reuenthal said, freeing Yang from having to tell or not tell his life story to Mittermeyer.

“I’m not saying I don’t enjoy it,” Yang said, then took another sip of his whiskey. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Forgive me, I guess.”

“It’s better than the other way around. To love something, but have no talent,” Mittermeyer said.

“The heart wants what it wants,” Reuenthal said. “It’s fortunate that talent in most places can be substituted for hard work and dedication.”

“Not in SW, I don’t think,” Mittermeyer said.

“To an extent,” Yang agreed. “There’s some intuition that I don’t know can be learned.”

“It must be a rare thing,” Mittermeyer said.

“As I said, we are not like most other people.”

“Can I propose a stupid idea?” Yang asked.

“Propose whatever you like,” Reuenthal said.

“Remember back that first time you played each other?” Yang asked, nodding at the other two. They glanced at each other.

“Of course.”

“We talked about how the practicum doesn’t actually reflect reality. Maybe we should…” Yang struggled to put his thoughts into words. “Maybe we should try to play it as though it did. At least in our games. No arbitrary starting conditions or win conditions. Make it less… false.”

Mittermeyer nodded slowly. “But how would you judge it, then?”

“It would have to be an ongoing campaign,” Reuenthal said. “Each engagement would just have to be a piece, so that the consequences of wins and losses would mean something.”

“I just think we should—if we’re going to—you know. If we don’t have to play for status, we should try to actually learn something.”

“This kind of thing is the reason you should be number one, but you’re not,” Reuenthal said. “In a fairer world.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever claimed to live in a fair world,” Yang said.

“No, we certainly don’t.”

“I like the idea,” Mittermeyer said. “But it would be a tricky thing to get going.”

“It’s just an idle thought.”

“Your idle thoughts often have more value than most people’s deliberate efforts,” Reuenthal said, which made Yang flush. “We can talk to everyone else about it when we see them.”

Yang nodded, then took another sip of his drink, coming to the bottom of it. His stomach grumbled uncomfortably, and he realized he was hungry. He glanced at the clock. It was past dinner time, but the commissary would still be open for another hour or so.

“I just realized that I’m starving,” Yang said, putting his glass down on the desk with a kind of finality. “Before I get too drunk to move, I’m going to change into a less gross outfit, then run down to the commissary. You want anything?”

“Thanks for looking out for our health,” Reuenthal said with a sardonic smile. “You know what I like.”

“Of course.”

Mittermeyer described what he wanted from the commissary, and then Yang was off to his room. He changed out of his dress uniform into his normal cadet pants and shirt, and was down the stairs and almost out the door of the dorm building when he found he had forgotten his charge card. He returned to his room to look for it, spent several minutes pulling all his possessions apart, then realized that he had left it in the pocket of his dress uniform jacket, which he had left in Reuenthal’s room. Since he would be unable to complete his errand without it, he returned to Reuenthal’s room and pushed the unlocked door open.

It took him a moment to process what he had walked in on. Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were leaning into each other, their faces pressed together in a kiss. Mittermeyer’s eyes were closed, and his hands were on Reuenthal’s face. Reuenthal’s hands were on Mittermeyer’s hips, and his eyes were open, widening in shock as Yang came in.

Yang felt like he went through every possible human emotion in the fraction of a second before he stepped back and closed the door.

He walked unsteadily back to his own dorm room and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to process exactly what he had just seen.

Several things in Yang’s life abruptly made a lot more sense, though he almost wished that they didn’t.

First: Reuenthal was a homosexual. Mittermeyer, too, apparently, though that thought had less of a weight in Yang’s mind.

Second: last New Year’s, Reuenthal had definitely been about to try to kiss him.

Third: that meant that Reuenthal had thought that HE was a homosexual, too.

Fourth: every single conversation that Yang had ever had with Reuenthal suddenly made more sense, when he thought back to that odd undertone that Reuenthal used. ‘We are not like other people.’ Indeed.

Fifth: Yang realized he was the most oblivious person on the planet. Possibly in the entire galaxy.

His thoughts were tumbling around in his brain so chaotically that he couldn’t even put names to them beyond those barest statements of fact. One thing he knew was that he felt unequivocally bad about what he had just seen. 

If he tugged on that feeling, there were only two options for what to name it.

The first option was disgust. It was the name that his analytical mind wanted to give to the feeling, because it would free him from a certain measure of personal responsibility. It would be the normal, the correct, the acceptable thing to feel. Rudolph von Goldenbaum had made it his mission to rid the Empire of homosexuals. Certainly, what he had seen Reuenthal doing was against all codes of behavior for IOA students. If Yang reported him, he would be kicked out of school, and maybe even jailed. It would be reasonable, then, for Yang to feel the same disgust that everyone else clearly felt at that behavior.

But he knew that wasn’t correct, because he had absolutely no desire to report Reuenthal to the IOA authority. 

He knew it wasn’t correct, because when he thought about the situation, Mittermeyer was equally complicit, and Yang didn’t feel anything bad about him at all. He could imagine Mittermeyer in that situation with anyone else in the world, and it didn’t stir up whatever this feeling was.

He could run the feeling over and over in his mind until it was as smooth as a river rock, but he couldn’t convince himself that it was the rational thing that he was feeling. Which left only the irrational.

He picked at the emotion like an open wound. He had felt this way about Reuenthal before, to a lesser extent. When he had been at the New Year’s party at the Mariendorfs’, and he had stood around and watched Reuenthal dance, he had been pretending that he was feeling bored and anxious-- but more than that, the feeling of standing alone on the edge of the party, he had labeled that feeling as “lonely”. If he had simply been alone at the party, though, he wouldn’t have felt it. It was the specific feeling he got when watching Reuenthal…

Yang pulled his pillow up over his face, pressing it down hard, as though the physical sensation could free him from his overactive thoughts.

Why had he felt lonely when Reuenthal changed his behavior towards him? Why had Yang missed, but couldn’t express that he missed, Reuenthal brushing up against him casually? Being alone with him? Sharing unguarded moments?

Why did he feel so odd when he watched Mittermeyer and Reuenthal speak to each other, in what felt like perfect synchronicity?

Why did he look around carefully to make sure he wasn’t being observed, whenever he leaned in close to Reuenthal?

Why had he told him his real name?

Why did he care so much about stupid, ridiculous, confusing Reuenthal? 

Yang would have said that he hated himself for feeling this way, if he had been forced to put it into words, but what he really hated was that he hadn’t realized that he felt this way until it was far too late. He hadn’t understood it, and he had spent so long in ignorance that he had ruined it. Stupid. He was so stupid.

He was stupid, and he was hungry, and his jacket with his charge card was still in Reuenthal’s bedroom, and there was no way he was going back  _ there  _ to get it, so Yang was forced to lay in bed and ruminate until he simply passed out.

* * *

Yang woke up later than usual, and discovered that he had missed both breakfast and Sunday physicals. It would be a demerit on his record, but it was too late to do anything about it now, so there was no point in worrying about it. The reason he had slept so late was that his phone had run out of battery during the night, and thus could not wake him up with his usual alarm. 

He set it to charge with some hesitation and then went to shower. When he came back, he turned it on and waited to see what came up. Reuenthal had sent Yang a single, innocuous seeming message.

< I would like to speak with you at some point, if possible.

This was completely in character, but what was not in character was that apparently Reuenthal had also texted Eisenach, who had then texted Yang. Eisenach was not averse to sending exactly as many text messages as it took to tell his story.

< what did you do to reuenthal?

< he asked me if you’d spoken to me since last night

< i asked why, had you gone missing

< and he said no, but he urgently needed to get in contact with you and you weren’t answering your messages

< and you missed physicals

< i told him you were probably just asleep

< and he told me to tell him if you did talk to me

< whatever you did, good job at flapping the unflappable, I guess

Yang responded to Eisenach, typing out the message in between steps of changing into a fresh uniform. 

> i was just asleep

> i’ll talk to him

> can I ask you a question though

> ages ago, you said that you and reuenthal had something in common

> what was that thing?

< it’s noon but it’s still too early for this kind of nonsense leigh

< same thing I have in common with you

< fairly sure we’re all a type of person rudolph von goldenbaum tried to get rid of

< and yet we all manage to stick around in the empire like roaches :)

> ok

< i hope you count yourself lucky every day for having me as a mentor

< go deal with whatever reuenthal’s problem is

< i have homework to do

> thanks

Unable to procrastinate by texting Eisenach anymore, Yang perched on his bed and hovered his fingers over his phone keyboard. He deleted and retyped several messages, eventually settling on ones that he hoped wouldn’t make Reuenthal think that he was intentionally avoiding him or otherwise about to do something destructive.

> just woke up

> I’m about to get lunch

> haven’t eaten since yesterday morning

> I think I can safely make the assumption that you would prefer to meet after that

> let me know where/when

With that, he stuck his phone in his pocket and headed to get lunch at the dining hall. Bittenfeld and Wahlen were both there, still sweaty after physicals. He got lunch and sat down with them.

“How many more demerits on your record can you afford, Leigh?” Bittenfeld asked.

“No matter how many I get, they’re not going to be enough to drop my rank, so you don’t have to worry about it,” Yang said through a mouthful of french fries.

“Congratulations on your catch yesterday, by the way,” Wahlen said.

“I didn’t really do anything.”

“I figured you didn’t, but congratulations are in order nonetheless.”

“Did you catch anything last year?”

“No. But it’s fun to just get off campus for a while.”

Yang nodded in half-agreement. He would have preferred to leave campus to go somewhere that was not Neue Sanssouci, but he supposed he didn’t really have that luxury of choice. “Not like any of us have any use for venison.”

“You missed a great time at physicals this morning,” Bittenfeld said.

“I’m sure.”

He launched into a description of the training that Yang was glad to have slept through. It was nice to sit with Bittenfeld and Wahlen and just completely tune out anything other than the day-to-day motions of life at the IOA. But eventually he finished his lunch and he looked at his phone.

< I can meet you at Eaglehead park when you’re done with your lunch.

Eaglehead was a park technically off campus. Public, but there were plenty of private paths one could go down to escape other people’s eyes. A tactical choice. Yang could understand why Reuenthal wouldn’t say to meet him in his dorm room, even though that would have been far more convenient. Yang hoped that Reuenthal would remember to bring his jacket-- he didn’t need the uniform very often, but he definitely did need his charge card.

Yang said goodbye to Wahlen and Bittenfeld and made his way off campus, towards the park. The day was sunny but cool, and the last leaves on the trees wavered as though each breath of wind sapped their remaining strength. Reuenthal was waiting for him at the park gates, leaning nonchalantly against the brick wall, Yang’s dress uniform jacket draped over his arm. He straightened at Yang’s approach and held the jacket out.

“Thanks,” Yang said. He took the jacket, fished through the pocket for his charge card, and held it up. “This was what I was looking for.”

Reuenthal wasn’t in the mood to laugh, so he just nodded and started off silently down the path. Yang stuck his charge card in his pants pocket, slung the jacket over his shoulder, and followed Reuenthal, a few steps behind. They walked in silence for a long time, going about half a kilometer down one of the branching paths into the forest before Reuenthal judged it safe enough to say anything.

“Have you spoken to Mittermeyer?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“He doesn’t know what you saw,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh.” It was true that Mittermeyer had had his eyes closed, but Yang had assumed the sound of the door opening and shutting would be more noticeable. Mittermeyer had been very distracted. “Was he confused when I didn’t come back?”

“I told him you had probably sat down on your bed and fallen asleep.”

“That ended up being basically true, so your conscience can be clear in that respect.”

“In that respect.” Reuenthal’s voice was cold and hard.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Yang said. “Look, Reuenthal, you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to do anything.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean, ‘why not’?”

Reuenthal stared straight ahead of himself. “It would be the reasonable thing for you to do.”

“I don’t even know why you would think that.”

“If I was sent away, you would be number one by default.”

“This isn’t about the stupid ranks!” Yang said, a little more forcefully than he meant to.

“It’s about something,” Reuenthal said. “I apologize for allowing you to see me behave in a way that disturbs you.”

“I’m not ‘disturbed’.”

“Disgusts, then. And I apologize for putting your mentee in a compromising situation.”

“Will you stop, Reuenthal? I’m not--” Yang shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck.

“You are upset.”

Yang had to give up on his original plan of pretending not to be unhappy. “Just because I’m upset doesn’t mean I’m going to go ruin your life.”

“Again, I have to ask, why not?”

“You don’t have to ask that, because it’s a stupid question.”

“It’s not.”

“I can’t imagine why you would need to know.”

“So that I can avoid doing things in the future that would cause those reasons to stop being in play.”

“I don’t want to stand here and dictate terms of surrender to you,” Yang said. “It’s cruel of you to imply that my word is worth so little.”

“I apologize,” Reuenthal said, then fell silent.

“Look, Reuenthal,” Yang began. “Even without going into the rest of it, you could just as easily denounce me.”

Reuenthal nodded slightly. “Mutually assured destruction.”

“Will you cut it out? I said that first just in case it’s the only thing your stubborn brain is willing to accept, but that’s not even the reason, okay?” Yang paused a moment, trying to stuff his frustration down, and scuffed at the path with his foot, kicking up wet leaves in front of him. Reuenthal didn’t say anything, so Yang continued. “I told you my name because I trusted you. You’re my best friend. You saved my life, once. I’m not going to throw that away over…” He trailed off.

“My immorality?”

Yang stopped in the path, in front of Reuenthal. “I’m not Rudolph von Goldenbauum,” Yang said. “I don’t care if you’re a homosexual. Or Mittermeyer, for that matter.”

Reuenthal crossed his arms, defensive. “You’re angry, though.”

“You don’t understand--”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “I think it’s you who doesn’t understand. I accidentally placed myself in a compromising position. You have power over me, and you’re angry. It’s a dangerous combination.”

“I’m not angry at you,” Yang said. He tried to relax, intentionally loosening his shoulders and staring up at the sky. “I swear.”

“Mittermeyer, then?”

“No.”

“Then you’re right, I don’t understand.”

“I’m angry at myself more than I am at you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

Yang took a moment to try to phrase things correctly, in a way that Reuenthal couldn’t misconstrue, despite the fact that Reuenthal seemed to be deliberately misconstruing everything that Yang was saying. “I’ve spent the past year being a complete idiot,” Yang said. “I should apologize to you for that, because I really have no excuse.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Reuenthal said, very delicately. “You haven’t behaved in any way that’s improper.”

“Last New Year’s,” Yang began, and heard Reuenthal take a kind of half breath in. “You were trying to kiss me, weren’t you?”

Reuenthal hesitated a moment, then said, “I shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t understand what was going on,” Yang said. “I…” He took a deep breath. “You should have tried it again when I was sober, is all.”

“Oh.” Reuenthal closed his eyes for a second, as though he were in pain. Yang kept talking.

“I guess-- I know you were trying to tell me something-- I couldn’t understand--” Yang ran his hand through his hair. “I was stupid, okay. And then I spent a year wondering what was going on, and neither of us could say anything, and now it’s this. That’s all. It’s not you.” 

“Wen-li--”

“Don’t,” Yang said. “Please.” He didn’t meet Reuenthal’s eyes, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. “Mittermeyer is a lot less stupid than I am.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t-- there’s nothing that you’ve done wrong.” He shrugged, miserable but calmer, now that the air was clear between them. “You can have this.”

“Thank you, then, if you won’t let me apologize,” Reuenthal said, though there was a note of hesitancy in his voice. “I feel as though having your permission makes it worse.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels like an admission of defeat.”

“Not everything is a war game,” Yang said. “And if it was, it isn’t one that I would want to play.”

“Why?”

Yang sighed. “I’m not blind. I did see the way you were acting with Mittermeyer-- he makes you happy-- you make him happy-- I’m not going to try to take that away just because…” He turned away slightly.

“I thought I had really disgusted you,” Reuenthal said. “I thought I had really crossed a line.”

“What, now?”

“Now and on New Year’s.”

Yang shook his head. “I wish I had made it clearer that it was just confusion. I think I wanted to say something to you, but I couldn’t figure it out. You didn’t disgust me. I don’t even think you could.” Maybe that had been too much to say, too close to an admission of continued feelings to be acceptable.

Reuenthal smiled a little, though. “Perhaps I tried because you are the only person who would ever say such a thing to me.”

“Reuenthal--”

“Don’t worry about it, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said. The veneer of distance was back in place, but Reuenthal’s voice was warmer, now, and he glanced at Yang as though looking for approval.

“I feel stupid asking, but I have to, because I clearly can’t figure things out unless they’re said to my face.” Yang said. “We’re still friends, right?”

“If you want to be.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Reuenthal smiled, then, a genuine expression. “Good.”

“And you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Yang kicked at the leaves on the ground again. “You should probably tell Mittermeyer that I know.”

“Why would I do that?” Reuenthal frowned a little, his secretive nature coming back into full effect.

“I think it would make his life easier. And I don’t think Mittermeyer would appreciate living in a lie of our construction-- he’s an honest man.” Yang was not looking forward to the inevitable sense of being a third wheel that hanging out with his friends was now surely going to bring, but it was better than having no friends, a fate that he felt like he had narrowly just avoided. The conversation had felt like walking along a knife blade.

“You should tell him.”

“What? No.”

“He’s your mentee.”

“You’re the one who--” Yang sighed. “You tell him. If he wants to have some kind of talk with me after the fact, that’s his prerogative.”

There was a slight pause in the conversation. “Am I allowed to ask if you’re okay?” Reuenthal asked, turning Yang’s words from a while ago around on him.

“You’re allowed.”

“Are you?”

Yang let out a huff of breath that might have been half a laugh, if he had been in a better mood. “I don’t know. I wish that-- nevermind.”

“What?”

“It’s not something that I can pretend doesn’t exist, so I can’t go back to my blissful ignorance.”

“You’re a historian. Isn’t that about wanting to know the truth of things that happen in the world?”

“History is only made up of what gets written down,” Yang said, thinking of false battles. “This sort of thing-- you’re not going to be writing it down. People in the future can pretend that it doesn’t exist. But I’m not-- I see it with my own eyes. It’s fine.”

“I can never mention this again, if you like.” It was funny that Reuenthal said that, because Yang had been assuming they wouldn’t speak of it again anyway. Still, Reuenthal opening that door gave Yang a chance to not close it.

Yang shook his head. “No, that wouldn’t make it better.” Refusing to talk about things had been what put him in this uncomfortable situation in the first place. “If Mittermeyer makes you happy, I don’t want you to feel like-- You know. I’m fine.” Yang felt unbearably awkward, but he was trying his best to make it clear that even if his jealousy-- and that was what it was, if he admitted it to himself-- was unavoidable and obvious, he wasn’t going to use it as a cudgel. 

“How emotionally mature of you,” Reuenthal said, which actually did make Yang laugh.

“I don’t think I would call it that.” He paused. “You’re okay, right?”

“Of course.” Reuenthal was back to his cool and calm self, now that the crisis had passed, for the most part.

“You apparently scared Eisenach earlier.”

“I figured you would talk to him first, if you were going to report me.”

“Why? He likes you, I think. And I think he knows, anyway.”

“I’m that obvious?” Reuenthal said with a frown.

“I wouldn’t know. Or maybe he’s talking about something else. I don’t know. He confuses me more than you do.”

“An impressive feat, apparently.”

“I’m glad I’ll be able to tell him that I’ve dealt with our problem.” Yang wanted to change the subject, and he did so about as gracefully as a car crash. “So, about next Saturday, I was thinking that maybe we should split our group into two teams…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [insert entire lyrics of Mr. Brightside right here]. This line in particular was chosen because the previous hunting chapter was also named after a saint. :^)
> 
> Reuyang shippers hate area man for pulling this particular stunt. Area man is only moderately sorry.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Read my space opera for characters who are already well aware that they are gay: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	10. How to Play Eschaton

_ October, 476 IC, Odin _

Mittermeyer found Yang the next night, knocking on his dorm door at around ten. Yang was in bed, in his pajamas, reading a book. Thinking it might be Reuenthal, he said, “Come in; it’s not locked.”

Mittermeyer opened the door and politely ignored Yang’s mess and state of undress. “Oh, hi, Mittermeyer,” Yang said when he saw who it was. “Er, you can just put that stuff on the floor if you want to sit down,” he said, motioning to a stack of papers intermixed with garbage that were taking up his desk chair.

Mittermeyer shut the door and did as Yang said. “Sorry for bothering you so late.”

“No, it’s fine, I was just getting some homework done.”

“You should probably keep your door locked,” Mittermeyer said. 

“I usually remember to lock it before I go to sleep. And I always do when I go out.”

“Usually.”

Yang sat up and made a face. “Locking doors on your mind, recently?” Mittermeyer flushed visibly. “I assume Reuenthal talked to you, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Mind telling me what he said?”

“What is there to say? He told me that you walked in on us, but that you’re going to be discreet about it.” Mittermeyer sounded mildly annoyed.

“Is something the matter?” Yang asked.

“I wish he had told me right away.”

“It probably wouldn’t have done you any good. He was just trying to save you from anxiety.”

“You could have told me right away.”

“To be fair to me, I thought you knew. I wasn’t exactly being stealthy when I walked in. You were just, uh, occupied.”

“You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”

“Why would I?” This conversation was less awkward than the one he had had with Reuenthal, but Yang still didn’t enjoy prolonging the discussion. Still, he had known the conversation was coming, so he had had time to get his thoughts and emotions under control enough to present a reasonable front to Mittermeyer. “Besides the fact that you’re both my friends, and it would be a poor way to treat a friend, having a scandal in which the freshman and sophomore number ones were reported to be engaging in illicit behavior…” Yang shrugged. “Even if I did report it, which I won’t, people would look at the situation and ask the question: cui bono? It would look very bad for me, wouldn’t it?”

Mittermeyer frowned. “It’s not funny.”

Yang had been trying to keep his voice light, but seeing that Mittermeyer was unhappy with that tactic, he changed his tone to a more serious and compassionate one. “No, it’s not. Look, Mittermeyer, you’re my friend. I want you to be happy. If being with Reuenthal makes you happy, it’s not my business to stop it. Just be careful, okay?”

“You don’t think it’s wrong?”

Yang rubbed his temple. “I can’t even begin to form a cogent response to that question. No. I guess.” He sighed. “It’s illegal. But that doesn’t mean anything. What I think about it doesn’t really matter.” He was getting disgruntled, but maybe he would rather Mittermeyer think that he was confused about the whole subject, rather than having complicated personal feelings about the participants in this particular tryst.

“Can I say something?” Mittermeyer asked. “And please don’t take it the wrong way.”

“Of course. I’m not your superior officer.”

“I do trust you, but I hate being in the position of needing to trust you.”

“I understand,” Yang said. “Reuenthal was arguing with me about the same premise, for a while.”

“And what conclusion did you reach?”

Yang leaned back against the wall, putting his arms behind his head. “If it makes you feel any better, Reuenthal also has some kompromat on me.”

“Really? How?”

“Very sweet of you to not ask ‘what’,” Yang said. “Last year, in a very drunk moment and in a feeling of friendship, I shared with him some information about my past. He’s been a gentleman about it. Anyway, if it would make you feel any better, I could burden you with the same information, and then we’d be even. You wouldn’t have to trust me.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “No, you don’t have to do that.”

Yang smiled. “You’re an honest man, Wolfgang Mittermeyer. I’m sure I’ll get drunk and tell you unprompted someday, anyway. I trust you.”

“Honest is a bit of a strong word.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going to have to lie about this until I die,” he said, and sounded so dejected that Yang leaned forward and stared at him.

“That bothers you?”

“How could it not? I’ve never lied to my parents in my life.”

Yang thought about that for a second. He didn’t want to just dump a platitude on Mittermeyer’s lap, because he didn’t think it would help, and he also couldn’t say anything about his own situation (because his parents were dead, and he didn’t want to drag himself into it anyway), but he needed to say something. “Listen, Mittermeyer,” he began. “I think-- there’s different types of lies in this world. There’s lies that are meant to harm, and lies that are meant to save. It’s the same thing with violence: there’s some that’s oppressive, and some that’s liberatory. It’s a tool.”

Mittermeyer seemed nonplussed by this. “But--”

“You’re about to tell me that since I like history I should care about the truth, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Reuenthal said something similar, in a different context.”

“Oh.”

“Do you actually want my thoughts on that? I don’t want to lecture you. I can really get going if I’m let loose.”

“Er. I’m not particularly good at history,” Mittermeyer admitted. “Can you give me the thirty second version?”

“Sure.” Yang thought for a second. “Every time you look at a piece of history, it’s been written down by someone. There’s no book that appeared out of thin air filled with something called ‘truth’-- it’s all a story that people are telling each other because it gives what we’re doing meaning. And when someone tells a story that has meaning, they always have a purpose. Even if everything that someone says is strictly ‘true’, you have to also look at what isn’t being said, and you have to decide if their message is ‘right’.” Yang scratched the back of his head.

“I think there are truths in life: we’re on a planet that turns, so the sun rises in the morning and sets at night, we get hungry if we don’t eat, we get tired and then we sleep. But I don’t think that something being true has moral weight, and I don’t think something being written down and called history makes it either ‘true’ or ‘right’ necessarily.” He shrugged.

“If you tell a lie to save yourself-- so what? Is it a moral right for you to tell this thing called ‘truth’ and then end up suffering? Or is it a moral right to be happy?”

Mittermeyer didn’t say anything for a second. “Are you actually asking me?”

“I don’t know,” Yang said, then leaned back. “Maybe it’s not a question with an actual answer. But I’d say that feeling bad about it isn’t going to earn you anything other than bad feelings, and telling the truth isn’t going to earn you anything other than animosity, so you might as well try to feel good about it.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“Maybe it is,” Yang said, though it certainly wasn’t. “But I’m not sure what else there is to say. I don’t want you to turn yourself in to the authorities, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up over not doing so.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“It’s selfish for me to want to keep my friends in school and out of jail.”

Mittermeyer laughed at that. “If that’s what selfishness is, I’ve been misunderstanding the world.”

“Selfishness is that, and a lot of other things besides. I’m a selfish man, Mittermeyer.”

“I thought you were a lazy one.”

“I have many foul qualities,” Yang said. “Not the least of which being that I love to lecture my mentee on my opinions.”

“I don’t mind. And, thank you.”

“No need to thank me.”

“I don’t think that there’s many other people who would be willing to keep this secret,” Mittermeyer said.

Yang closed his eyes, his head tilted back against the wall. “If the roles were reversed, you would.”

“I don’t know if that’s true.”

“I do,” Yang said. “You have a low opinion of yourself, and I don’t know why.”

Mittermeyer shrugged, not quite looking at Yang. “If you say so.”

“I think it would be difficult for us to be friends if you weren’t the type of person I know you to be. Whatever you want to call that type of person, if you think that me calling it ‘good’ is a step too far.” 

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said, though Yang didn’t know what he was referring to. He stood. “Thank you, anyway.”

“You’re welcome.” Mittermeyer walked to the door. When he had his hand on the handle, Yang cracked his eyes open and looked at him. “Oh, and Mittermeyer,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Not that I mind your company, but maybe you should avoid being seen going to other mens’ rooms alone at night, okay?”

Mittermeyer cringed, then nodded. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yang said with a smile. “Have a nice night.”

* * *

_ November, 476 IC, Odin _

By the time the next Saturday rolled around, life was re-approaching some semblance of normality. Yang did his best to foster within himself an emotion he deemed “casual benevolence” towards Reuenthal and Mittermeyer, and he felt like it was almost working. It made him happy to see Reuenthal smile and look less burdened than he had in a long while. And when they met in their larger group to play their games, he could pretend like nothing had changed. He was required to pretend that, in fact.

When they gathered in their usual practice room, Reuenthal brought the group to attention, drawing the ire of Bittenfeld, who wanted to get playing immediately.

“The other day, Leigh had an idea that I believe is worth serious consideration,” Reuenthal said. “Let him explain it for a minute.”

“Thanks,” Yang said. He rather awkwardly stood from his chair to address the group, his hand finding its way into his hair, his perpetual nervous habit. “I was thinking-- if you’re all willing to try this-- maybe we should change the way we’re playing.”

“What do you mean?” Wahlen asked.

“We’re not playing for points right now,” Yang said. “Mostly just for fun, right?” There were nods all around. “That’s good. And that’s fine. I was just imagining that, since we’re not constrained by needing to match up with different people every week, and we’re not fighting over rankings, we could try to make our matches a little more realistic.”

“Realistic to what?” Bittenfeld asked.

“Life,” Yang said. “Reuenthal suggested that we play a long term campaign, so that wins and losses mean something. That way we’ll have to take into account the whole scope of the battle: choosing a time and place for the engagement, how many troops or ships we’re going to commit, what’s an acceptable loss and what’s an acceptable retreat, and how we’d be able to meet back up with the main body of the force, that kind of thing.”

Eisenach was nodding and Wahlen looked contemplative.

“What kind of long term campaign are we talking about?” Wahlen asked.

Reuenthal cut in. “We’re training to fight only one kind of war, aren’t we?” he asked. “We should simulate that one.”

That made Bittenfeld grin. “You know, I do like the sound of that. No more messing around with ancient Earth garbage.”

“So I think we should split up into teams, and those can be permanent, at least until we decide we don’t want to play like this anymore. And then we’ll be able to do long term strategy.”

“All in favor of this proposal?” Reuenthal asked. Everyone’s hand went in the air immediately, which surprised Yang.

“I want to be on Reuenthal’s team,” Bittenfeld said.

“I’ll GM the whole game,” Yang said immediately.

“No,” Wahlen said. “You can’t.”

“What? Why?” Yang asked. He wanted to be the GM.

“Think about it: if Reuenthal leads one team, unless you’re on the other, that side stands no chance.”

Yang frowned. “The whole point is to improve your abilities. You can’t just give up like that immediately.”

“You know it’s true, though,” Wahlen said.

Reuenthal was smirking at Yang, who continued to scowl. “But I like to GM.”

“We’re going to need more people,” Mittermeyer said, also frowning a little. “I don’t know how effective this will be if we don’t. I mean we only have six right now. If we have two GMs, that’s teams of two.”

Yang tapped his chin. “You’re not wrong.” He wasn’t strictly opposed to bringing in more people, but he liked his close knit group of friends. “Can we find more people we trust? I mean trust, trust,” he said. He still wasn’t entirely sure if this little group was technically allowed under the IOA rules, and he had no desire to bring in people who would be hard to deal with.

“If we bring in someone we don’t like, we can always just kick them out,” Wahlen said. “I think there’s a few people we could invite, at least.”

“There’s a couple freshmen that I know who might enjoy this,” Mittermeyer said. 

“Freshmen,” Bittenfeld said with a mild look of disgust. Yang rolled his eyes.

“Eisenach, are there any upperclassmen who would want in?”

Eisenach looked pensive for a second, then nodded. That was about the most response Yang was going to get, so he smiled and moved on.

“I would really prefer to GM,” Yang said again.

“I don’t know if you’ll find many people who will be willing to GM every match and never play,” Mittermeyer said. “Aside from Leigh, anyway. Maybe when matches happen, one representative from each team should be the GM for each engagement.”

“Then we have the problem of information that each side won’t want the other to have access to. We’ll still need at least one impartial moderator, who will be in charge of the overall game, and resolving disputes.”

Eisenach raised his hand, then pointed at himself. 

Yang was still frowning. “You want the job?”

Eisenach nodded.

“Perhaps that’s the best result we’re going to get,” Reuenthal said. “Wahlen’s right that you shouldn’t do it. And if we’re bringing in other students, it might be best to have our technically most senior person run the game. Just to make sure things run smoothly.”

Yang could see the logic in that, though he still was unhappy that he wasn’t getting the job.

Bittenfeld snorted. “At least we won’t have to worry about him saying anything secret.”

Eisenach just smiled languidly.

“Fine,” Yang said. “If there are no objections?” There were none. He took out his thermos from his bag and poured himself a cup of tea before speaking again. “Then I suppose we should probably hash out teams and starting conditions now, before we bring other people in.”

Reuenthal turned on the projector at the front of the room. “We’re playing the Empire versus the rebel fleet, aren’t we?”

There was a prolonged moment of silence. “Yes,” Yang said. “We might as well.”

“Are there objections to me appointing myself supreme commander of the Imperial Fleet?” Reuenthal asked, leaning against the wall, the projector sending rippling waves of light across him. He looked impressive in that light-- Yang couldn’t stop himself from looking.

“That would make Leigh…” Wahlen said, narrowing his eyes.

“It’s not a good look,” Mittermeyer agreed.

“It’s fine,” Yang said. “Staden puts me in the rebel fleet role every time it comes up. This is hardly any different. Besides, Reuenthal has his pride to worry about.”

“So, no objections?” Reuenthal asked, looking at Yang, who waved his hand.

“Go ahead.”

Reuenthal typed into the computer, and the projector screen changed to display two columns-- the first one entitled “Imperial Fleet” and the second, “Rebel Fleet”. Under ‘Imperial Fleet’ was written ‘Supreme Fleet Admiral Oskar von Reuenthal’. It seemed a little pretentious, but then on the other side, Reuenthal typed ‘Space Fleet Commander, Fleet Admiral Hank von Leigh’, which made Yang roll his eyes. 

“Wahlen,” Yang said, “Want to be on my team?” 

Wahlen considered it for a second. Yang figured that to most of the students, there would be more prestige in being on the Imperial side of things, but he did need players. And he figured that Wahlen both respected his capabilities and respected the fact that he had been Yang’s first choice. He wasn’t Yang’s first choice, really-- Yang would have preferred Mittermeyer or Eisenach, but it would be stupid not to let Reuenthal have Mittermeyer, and Eisenach wasn’t playing, so Wahlen it was. He was steady and competent, which were both good traits.

“Sure,” Wahlen said after a moment.

“What rank are you giving him?” Reuenthal asked.

“Admiral,” Yang said.

Reuenthal wrote ‘Admiral August Samuel Wahlen’ on the board.

“I’ll take Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said. “No objections?”

“Go ahead,” Yang said.

“Welcome to the team, High Admiral Mittermeyer.”

“You won’t let me be a Fleet Admiral?” Mittermeyer asked.

“You’ll have to earn your promotion,” Reuenthal said. Mittermeyer gave him a look.

“I said I wanted to be on Reuenthal’s team,” Bittenfeld said. 

Reuenthal looked across at Yang, who shrugged. “I can survive without you, Bittenfeld.” And so, in short order, Bittenfeld was marked down as another High Admiral on the board.

“That will leave you with the first pick from anyone we bring in,” Reuenthal said. “I trust that you all will exercise good judgement.”

From there, they moved on to hashing out the starting equipment and positions that each side would have available. It wasn’t as though they had detailed knowledge of the real strengths of each side, but they could make rough guesses. They didn’t even have accurate navigational charts of anywhere, but Reuenthal clapped Eisenach on the back and told him that that would be his headache as the campaign GM.

* * *

_ April, 476 IC, Odin _

Yang’s informal club expanded in number to about fifteen people. It remained an exclusive group, comprised of high ranking students across all different school years. Some of the most notable among their number were Bayerlein, the freshman number three; Farenheight, the senior number five; and Ferner, the junior number one. 

Most of the newcomers flocked to Reuenthal’s side, which Yang didn’t particularly mind. Reuenthal had an easier time wrangling all their personalities than Yang would have. It was easy to set himself up as the heel, and every time the subject came up in conversation, Reuenthal expressed that he was glad that Yang was willing to take the role.

He also said, however, that Yang should be more proactive.

“You can’t just wait until I invade through Iserlohn,” Reuenthal said as they sat in the dining hall one Friday night, leaning across the table to talk to each other quietly. “You should do something.”

“Why? We’ve seen exactly what happens when the rebel fleet has thrown themselves at Iserlohn in the past: absolutely nothing. I have no desire to waste resources.”

“So I’m forced to invade in order to make this game worthwhile.”

“And then I can pick you down bit by bit, every time you cross the line,” Yang said with a shrug. “That’s the way war goes, isn’t it?”

“The fact that you’re not trying to win is quite infuriating.”

“I’ve always enjoyed simply not-losing,” Yang said.

Mittermeyer appeared, then, placing his tray down and sitting next to Reuenthal. “What are you talking about?”

“Von Leigh’s chronic lack of ambition, and how it’s ruining our game.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s ruined,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m having a great time.”

“Besides,” Yang said. “I’m not a man with no ambition.” He said this with a wide smile. “Just the wrong kind.”

Reuenthal raised an eyebrow. “Then you should use that wrong kind of ambition to make the game more interesting.”

“I’ll think about it,” Yang said. “I don’t want to end up cornering myself.”

“I feel like you do better when you are cornered,” Mittermeyer said. “When you’re forced to take action, that’s when you’re most exciting.”

“Excitement isn’t everything,” Yang said. “And if you want to force me to do anything, you’ll have to work for it.”

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer shared a look, then, and Yang looked away. “I suppose we can’t discuss our strategy here with you,” Reuenthal said. 

Yang tried not to interfere with the other side’s strategy meetings, since it crossed several personal and professional boundaries, but Yang’s subordinates (Ferner, mostly) weren’t above glancing through any notes that Eisenach left uncovered, and Wahlen felt free to share any information that Bittenfeld blurted out in unguarded moments. When this sort of espionage was discovered, Eisenach started writing all his personal notes in an elaborate code, and Reuenthal started feeding Bittenfeld false information. It had been a nice advantage while Yang had kept it, but it didn’t last long. 

He wasn’t exactly jealous of Mittermeyer getting to play with Reuenthal, since playing against him had its own rewards, but he would have liked the opportunity to switch roles, at some point. He was considering bringing up the idea of resetting the game at the beginning of the next school year, and trying again with different team setups. He wasn’t sure how well that idea would go over-- he was planning to bring it up with Eisenach eventually, since it would probably be his call.

Since he was intending to do that, Yang decided to humor Reuenthal by doing something risky before the end of the school year, and he began plans to launch a full scale invasion of the Empire through the Phezzan corridor. Eisenach was annoyed at him when he put these plans into motion, because since no one was playing “as Phezzan”, he as the GM had to be responsible for organizing Phezzan’s merchant fleet into a defense. The whole thing made Yang cringe internally-- after all, his father had been a merchant operating between the FPA and Phezzan, and he couldn’t really imagine Boris Konev and his family getting their ship marshalled into a defensive formation by the Landesherr. Reuenthal’s fleet had to come to their defense, and it turned into a massive, prolonged struggle. 

This was all well and good, or it would have been, had Staden, who ran the SW practicum, not pulled Yang aside one day as he was finishing up a rather tedious class match. “Von Leigh, I would like to speak with you in my office,” Staden said.

“Of course, sir,” Yang said. He felt like he usually had a handle on how to deal with Staden, so he wasn’t nervous, but he was slightly confused. “Now?”

“At four.”

Since Yang’s match had finished early into class, that meant that Yang had a little bit of time to stew before he actually had to meet with Staden. As he headed out onto the green, wondering if Reuenthal was done with his own match, Yang checked his phone and discovered that Eisenach had been texting him while he had been busy.

< hey leigh

< sorry to be the bearer of bad news

< staden is asking me why i have the practice room booked up from now until eternity

< and I just saw that he accessed the room logs

< so I told him about our practice game

< and he asked me who runs it 

< and he sent me this email

Eisenach attached a screenshot of an email that just read:

_ I see. Thank you for the information. _

_ V/r _

_ Capt. Theodore Staden _

_ Imperial Officers’ Academy, Strategic Warfare Program Coordinator _

< so i assume you’re going to get asked about it

< don’t think you’re in trouble, exactly

< but the room logs do have a lot in there

> thanks for the warning

> unfortunately, staden emphatically doesn’t like me

> so I guess we shall see how miserable this is

Yang sat down on the grass outside, getting his pants a little wet, then leaned back onto his bookbag, staring up into the cloudless blue spring sky. They weren’t technically breaking any rules. No one ever said it was illegal to do what was essentially extra schoolwork, in a room that Eisenach had somehow gotten permission from someone to use. Was it weird? Maybe.

Well. He couldn’t do anything about it now. If he had thought that they were likely to get in trouble for it, he probably would have gone to greater lengths to keep it secret. Which was to say, they would have just met somewhere else, rather than in the practice room.

Reuenthal eventually exited the building, saw Yang half-napping on the green, and came over to sit next to him. Yang recognized the sound of his footsteps approaching, and without opening his eyes, asked, “Did Staden ask to see you?”

“What?” Reuenthal asked.

Yang wordlessly passed him his phone with the text messages from Eisenach, which Reuenthal read. 

“And Staden wants to see me at four,” Yang said when it seemed like Reuenthal had finished reading.

“That’s in ten minutes. Do you want me to go with you?”

“Thanks for the offer, but if there’s some sort of fall to be taken, I think that it’s less injurious for us all if I simply take it.”

“You don’t need to be the martyr of the sophomore class.”

“I’m not trying to be,” Yang said. “I’m just saying that it’s probably the cleanest thing to do. Staden already doesn’t like me.”

Reuenthal frowned. “Good luck, then.”

“I think the worst I’ll get is yelled at,” Yang said. He laid on the grass for a bit longer, then stood, stretching. “Dinner later?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll let you know how this goes. Don’t bother waiting for me, since I have no idea how long this will take.” He gathered his belongings and then headed back inside towards Staden’s office, leaving Reuenthal on the green.

Yang knocked on the door to Staden’s office. “Come in,” Staden called from inside. Yang pulled the door open and entered, saluting his teacher. “Shut the door behind you, von Leigh,” Staden said. Yang did so.

“And take a seat, cadet. Or, maybe, I should say, Fleet Admiral?”

Yang took the offered chair, trying to keep a steady face despite Staden’s rather scathing tone. He didn’t say anything, which forced Staden to address him again.

“So, Eisenach told me that you’ve been running a little club,” Staden said. “Care to explain?”

“It’s not really a club,” Yang said. “It’s more like a study group.”

“A study group.” Staden’s tone was incredulous and flat.

“At the beginning of the year, my mentee, uh, you have him, Wolfgang Mittermeyer, he said he wanted extra practice outside of class, so I offered to set up games for him to play against people. Eisenach booked the room for us.”

“I looked at the room logs. You’ve been in there almost every Saturday afternoon since August.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I find it hard to believe that Mittermeyer could need that much practice. He’s the top freshman.”

“Perhaps that is because of the amount of practice that he has, sir,” Yang said, unable to stop himself.

“Practice is one thing, von Leigh,” Staden said. “This is another.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

Staden turned his computer around. It was displaying a random assortment of files that Eisenach had left on the practice room computers— a map from a previous battle showing troop movements, a spreadsheet that calculated supply estimates, a note that Yang had typed to Wahlen asking about his thoughts on Reuenthal’s movements (that one in particular made Yang cringe a little, because it was addressed to ‘Admiral’ Wahlen, and signed by ‘Fleet Admiral’ von Leigh). “What is all this, Leigh?”

“It’s a game, sir,” Yang said. Dryly, he added, “You’ve criticized me before for getting too deep into a fantasy to amuse Reuenthal. I haven’t learned my lesson.”

Staden looked as though Yang were giving him a headache. “Explain, if you would, ‘Fleet Admiral’.”

Yang shrugged. “We got bored of playing one-off games against each other, so we decided it would be interesting to set up a whole campaign. Take sides and play a continuing thing. We thought it was funny.”

“And you fancied yourself as the leader of the rebel fleet?”

Yang laughed a little. “I wanted to GM,” he said. “I like that role much better. But I was forced into it. No different than class, really.”

“Forced?”

“Reuenthal wanted to play the Empire, and no one wanted to play against him unless I was the other team leader.”

“You’re that charismatic?”

“At the risk of sounding conceited, sir, my win/loss record speaks for itself better than I could.”

“I’m aware, von Leigh.” Staden paused. “In a different world, you would be number one.”

“That’s not the world we live in, sir,” Yang said, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice.

“Yes. And in the world that we’re in, I’m required to sit here and deal with this before it gets out of hand.”

“Out of hand, sir? If it’s the titles that are the problem, I can tell everyone to stop. That part was just for fun. I didn’t think the rest was against the rules.”

“The titles make you look like idiots, Leigh,” Staden said. “That’s worthy of derision, and I would prefer if you stopped, but not the actual issue.”

“I’m confused as to what the problem is, sir.”

“Where did Eisenach get this data?” Staden asked, pulling up a file on his computer entitled ‘imp troop strength supply rte Iserlohn corridor jan’. He showed it to Yang, who shrugged.

“I don’t play the Imperial side, so you’d have to ask Reuenthal or Eisenach, but I’d assume they do it the same way that I do: I sit down with my team and run through what a reasonable supply chain or whatever looks like, then I’d send it to Eisenach to get him to approve it for use in the game. It’s made up. I think Reuenthal has me at a bit of an advantage, though, because he can listen to people talk, read economic forecasts to see what supplies are being purchased, and watch ships launch from Odin-- stuff like that-- and make assumptions based on what he knows.” Granted, Yang could and did do the same thing to contra-analyze Reuenthal’s side, but Staden didn’t need that detail at this moment.

“Did you know that for several years, before I came to teach here, I was a staff officer on Iserlohn?”

“No, sir,” Yang said.

“I was responsible for all requisition requests to the front lines—taking in incoming supplies, sending out ships according to the orders of the day.” Yang stayed silent, even though Staden paused. “That experience gave me a very, very good sense of what a normal supply chain through Iserlohn looks like.”

Yang nodded, hesitantly.

“This is a little too close to reality for comfort, von Leigh,” Staden said finally. “Right down to the ‘acceptable losses’ of frontline grift.” He shook his head. He pulled up another file, ‘patrol sched iserlohn corridor exit feb-mar’ and tapped on the screen. “I believe you when you say it’s prescience, because I have no idea how a bunch of cadets playing a game would come to have classified information about troop movements, and, if they did come to have such a thing, they wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave it on an unsecured computer that anyone with a school administrator account can simply look at.”

“What are you saying, sir?”

“I’m saying that you and your friends are perhaps a bit too clever for your own good.” He looked at Yang. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by that at all.”

“Do you want me to thank you, or apologize, sir?” Yang asked. He was aware that he was coming right up to the edge of Staden’s finite patience with him, but he was compelled to make comments regardless.

“Neither,” Staden said. He rubbed his temples. “You’ve been a terrible influence on everyone, you know.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“It used to be that I would only want to start drinking when I had to grade your postmortems,” Staden said dryly. “Then your infection spread to Reuenthal, then Wahlen, and you’ve even started to corrupt some of the upper and lower classmen. You give me a headache, Leigh.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Yang said, but smiled.

Staden steepled his fingers on his desk. “I’m not going to stop you from playing,” he said. “I don’t think I could. I imagine you’d just take your little group elsewhere and continue to do as you like. Am I wrong?”

“I would hate to think of myself as someone who deliberately flouts school rules.”

Staden actually laughed at that. “Of course not.”

“If you’re not going to stop us,” Yang said, “I’m not sure what the issue is.”

“The issue is that you have what looks very much like detailed information about the Imperial Fleet’s strengths and weaknesses, and you’re playing with it like a toddler might play with an amusing toy,” Staden said. “So, here’s what’s going to happen. You can keep playing, with the following conditions: you play only on secure computers, you encrypt all your messages and data, you don’t speak of this game to anyone who isn’t already part of it, and Eisenach will securely transmit to me all of your game data and activity logs. I mean all of it, both from the past and going forward. And if I see something in there that causes alarm, or if I want you to change the direction that your game is going, you will do it, no questions asked. Do you understand?”

“I understand the conditions, but I don’t understand why. Either it’s too dangerous for us to have this kind of information and you should just ban us from playing, or it’s a game that has no bearing on reality—we really are just making things up. I guess I’m just not sure why you care, sir?”

“What’s the best way to put this? Yes, you’re making things up. Yes, it’s a game. If you were just playing a game and putting on airs, I’d put a demerit on your record for boastfulness and move on with my life. But the fact is that to an outsider, it might not look like a game, and remarkably accurate information is remarkably accurate information, regardless of its source. If this were to have been found by someone else, perhaps—” Staden paused, looked at Yang. “Are you a trustworthy man, von Leigh?”

“How could I possibly answer that question to your satisfaction, sir?”

“Fine. If this were to have been found by someone other than myself, it might appear to my superiors that I was supplying my students with classified information that I once had access to, for some purpose.”

“Oh.” Yang’s thoughts were tumbling around in his head. Didn’t it always come back to false battles, with him?

“So this is covering my own back, as much as it is yours,” Staden admitted.

“You could just tell us to play a different game,” Yang said. “Or ban us.”

Staden studied him for a moment. Yang felt rather like a bug under a microscope. “On the other hand, Leigh, it’s rare that so many talented students are gathered together and taking initiative. I’ve been teaching here for five years, and I’ve yet to see anything like it. So, against my better judgement, I’m curious to see what you do. Perhaps it’s better to let this fire burn carefully, under my watch, rather than spreading or smoldering out of sight.”

“I understand.”

“Another thing,” Staden said. “You’re playing the rebel fleet. You say you haven’t learned your lesson about indulging in a fantasy for Reuenthal’s amusement. Perhaps you should learn that lesson, in case your fantasies start becoming part of your personal life. You may need to put yourself in the devil’s shoes to play this game, but if you start talking like the devil, or dancing to the devil’s tune, we are going to have problems. Understood?”

Yang nodded.

“Do you have any questions?”

“No,” Yang said. “Am I free to go? I should go make sure everyone else understands.”

“One last thing. I see from this game log that your fleet attempted an invasion through the Phezzan corridor.”

Yang looked up. “Yes.”

“In your personal opinion, is that likely to happen in reality?”

“My personal opinion as a player of the game…?”

“Your personal opinion as a clearly astute SW student.”

Yang thought for a second. “Probably not.”

“Why do you say so?”

“The rebel fleet has a far better chance of success if it doesn’t overstretch itself. It would be pretty hard for it to get a real foothold on Phezzan, and even if it did, if it overextended into the Empire’s territory, it would be very easy to crush.” Yang shrugged.

“Then may I ask why you decided to make that maneuver?”

“Reuenthal wanted me to be more aggressive, and I was hoping we’d reset the game at the end of the year. It was mostly for fun.” Yang paused for a second. “I don’t think that you have to worry about the Phezzan corridor right now, but all it takes is one person in the rebel fleet to be charismatic and ambitious for it to become a problem.”

Staden nodded. “I see.”

“I guess if I were actually in the Imperial high command, and I noticed that there were suddenly fewer rebel patrol units on the other side of Iserlohn, I’d maybe start to get worried about Phezzan. But that’s just speculation.”

“Thank you for indulging me with your speculation,” Staden said.

“Thank you for not putting a demerit on my record for boastfulness, sir.”

Staden’s smile was grim. “Don’t let it get out of hand, von Leigh.”

“Of course not, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eschaton is a game played by the characters of the novel Infinite Jest, in which they simulate global thermonuclear war by playing tennis. Yes, I am aware that referencing a minor plot point in Infinite Jest for use as a fanfiction chapter title makes me. The worst person on the planet. But I have always been like this and I refuse to stop.
> 
> Every three seconds while writing this story, an alarm should sound that says "The author is going off on a tangent about The Nature Of The Text again." Luckily, Yang Wen-li makes an excellent authorial mouthpiece, and works as such even in canon. He is great.
> 
> Thank you to Lydia for the beta read. If you want a space opera where space battles are conducted between like, max two ships at a time, and it's a big deal when even that happens, read my original fiction: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	11. Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note, this chapter begins with a timeskip of two years. Yang is now a senior.

_November, 478 IC, Odin_

“Hey, Reuenthal, let me in,” Yang said, knocking on Reuenthal’s dorm door in the senior residence hall. Mittermeyer leaned against the wall a few steps away, watching this with an amused expression. 

“He’s in a mood,” Mittermeyer said, quietly enough that Reuenthal on the other side of the door wouldn’t be able to hear. 

“Reuenthal!” Yang said again, and knocked harder. “I know you’re in there.”

“Can a man not nap in peace?” Reuenthal called from inside his room.

“You don’t take naps. Open the door.”

“I have no desire to see or be seen by anyone at this hour.”

“It’s six,” Yang said. “Come on, don’t ruin your night with moping.”

“I’m not ‘moping’.”

“I’m not sure what you’d call this, then,” Yang said. “Come on.”

Mittermeyer rolled his eyes. “Reuenthal, open the door.”

There was silence from the other side. Mittermeyer smiled, then fished around in his pocket for a second, delicately balancing the package he was carrying. He pulled out his keychain, fiddled around with it until he found the key that he was looking for, then stuck it in Reuenthal’s door, unlocking it. 

“Why do you even have that?” Yang whispered before Mittermeyer pushed the door open. Mittermeyer just grinned at him.

They entered Reuenthal’s room. “Happy birthday!” Yang said. “How does it feel to be twenty?”

Reuenthal was sitting on his bed, in his white dress shirt and cadet pants, with a book open on his lap and a tumbler of some amber beverage on his windowsill. He looked at his friends as they came in with an expression that approached but did not quite make it to annoyance.

“I don’t celebrate,” Reuenthal said.

“We do,” Mittermeyer said. “We brought you some things, and then we’re going to take you out to have some fun.”

“Fun.” Reuenthal didn’t sound thrilled, but the lack of serious objections on his part seemed like as much of an admission that he was glad to see his friends as Yang and Mittermeyer were about to get.

Yang handed Reuenthal the long, skinny package that he was carrying. Reuenthal held it on his lap for a second, then swung his legs around to perch on his bed rather than lay across it. “You really should not have gotten me anything.”

“I make some money now for TA’ing for Staden, and it’s not like I have anything better to spend it on,” Yang said. “Open it.”

“I’m certain you could spend it on something other than me,” Reuenthal said, but he opened the package anyway, peeling apart the taped cardboard to reveal a rapier in a scabbard. Reuenthal picked it up and turned it over in his hands a couple times.

“Just in case you ever get in a duel,” Yang said, scratching the back of his head. “You’ll just have to ask for swords rather than pistols.”

“Do you expect me to get into a duel?” Reuenthal asked. He unsheathed the sword and tested the blade against his thumb.

“Better to be prepared than not. And even if you don’t, you can hang it on your wall or something.”

Reuenthal held the sword out, the tip of it ending up underneath Yang’s chin. He flushed a little at the action, but didn’t step back. “Thanks,” Reuenthal said, tapped the underside of Yang’s chin with the sword gently, then returned it to its sheath. Yang rubbed his chin, just to make sure that he hadn’t actually been cut, but he was fine.

“My gift is less lethal to others, but probably more lethal to yourself,” Mittermeyer said. He passed Reuenthal what was very clearly a bottle wrapped in paper.

Reuenthal smiled at him. “Probably more useful on a day to day basis,” he said as he unwrapped Mittermeyer’s whiskey bottle. “Good stuff. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Did you want to open this now?” Reuenthal asked.

“I would be a pretty poor gift-giver if I demanded to immediately drink away my gift,” Mittermeyer said. “Let’s go out. My treat.”

“You’re really testing me with this,” Reuenthal said.

“If it being your birthday really bothers you that much, pretend like we’re going out like it was any other day,” Mittermeyer said. 

Reuenthal stood and stretched. “How did you find out it was my birthday, anyway?”

“I have access to student records as Staden’s TA,” Yang said. “Can’t keep a secret like that from me now.”

“That seems like a security oversight,” Reuenthal said. He tugged on his uniform jacket.

“Perhaps,” Yang said. “But what would I actually do with that information?”

“Send birthday cards to the entire freshman class,” Mittermeyer said. “You ready to go?”

“Where are we headed?” Reuenthal asked.

“Joseph’s,” Mittermeyer said, naming a bar off campus that was often frequented by IOA students.

They walked out of the dorm and were immediately hit with the whipping cold winter wind. The sun had set over an hour ago, and light flakes of snow were drifting down. All three of them pulled their uniform jackets up over their mouths and noses and their black winter beanies down over their ears, hands jammed deep into their pockets for the walk. Mittermeyer jogged backwards ahead of Yang and Reuenthal, often half-falling off the sidewalk into the street as he didn’t look where he was going, his rosy cheeks glowing whenever he stepped into the hard glare of a streetlight.

Joseph’s itself was a kind of dark and dingy place, almost always full to bursting with students on weekends (though today was a Thursday), decorated with the kind of kitschy memorabilia that could be found in any bar across the Empire: animal head trophies, old photographs, fake looking swords, and the like. The trio slid into a booth in the back, with Reuenthal and Mittermeyer next to each other. Yang sat across from them and used the extra space to his advantage, sitting sideways, leaning against the wall with his feet up on the cushioned bench.

The waitress, an older woman in a dress that could best be described as “workmanlike”, came up to them. “What can I get for you boys?”

Mittermeyer leaned forward, elbow on the table, and grinned. “Fraulein, we’re here to celebrate this man’s birthday.” He shoved Reuenthal’s shoulder. Reuenthal put on a grim smile for the waitress, then ordered a round of beers.

“And can I have a plate of fries?” Yang asked.

“Of course.” The waitress vanished, then returned a minute later with the first round of drinks and fries, which Yang pushed to the center of the table for them all to share.

They talked for a long time about just mundane things, mostly Mittermeyer trying to egg Yang into complaining about how bad it was to grade SW postmortems.

“They’re not that bad,” Yang said. “They’re freshmen. They’ll improve, I’m sure.”

“No, they won’t,” Reuenthal said.

“You don’t have to be mean. Besides, most of what I grade is the engineering group. They don’t need to have that much SW practice.”

“What he’s saying is that you dodged a bullet by being put in our SW class,” Reuenthal said to Mittermeyer.

“Think the history cohort is any better?”

“They at least might have a better grasp of the imperial language,” Yang said dryly, allowing his biggest criticism to slip out.

Mittermeyer laughed. “It’s true that doing too much math rots the functional language part of the brain.”

“I think that might be drinking too much,” Yang said, eyeing Mittermeyer’s second empty glass.

“No such thing.”

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer were sitting very close to each other, certainly with their legs pressed together under the table. Reuenthal casually had his arms stretched out across the top of the back of the bench, and when Mittermeyer leaned back, this allowed his fingers to gently brush Mittermeyer’s shoulder. Yang astutely did not look at this, but did watch the room from his sideways vantage point, and whenever he stiffened like the waitress was coming over, Reuenthal’s hands miraculously took up a much less precarious position.

After some length of sustained drinking, Yang and Mittermeyer were moderately drunk and Reuenthal was very drunk. It wasn’t that he was a lightweight, he was just faster at downing beer than they were, and he seemed to have an endless appetite for it.

“Say, Reuenthal, why don’t you like birthdays? This is fun, isn’t it?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Nothing good has ever happened on my birthday,” Reuenthal said. “And tomorrow I am going to wake up with a headache.”

“Drink some water when you get back,” Yang mumbled.

“I think something good happened on your birthday,” Mittermeyer said.

Reuenthal turned slightly and looked at him. “What?”

“You were born.”

Reuenthal snorted in outright derision. “That is objectively the worst thing that could have happened.”

Mittermeyer flinched back. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not true.”

“Oh?”

“Stop fishing for compliments,” Yang said.

“That’s the last thing that I’m doing.” Reuenthal stared out across the bar.

“Then what are you doing?” Mittermeyer demanded.

“Stating the facts.”

A pall fell over the conversation then, and Mittermeyer glanced across the table at Yang, who shrugged helplessly. Whenever Reuenthal got into a mood, there wasn’t much that could be done to relieve him of it, other than get him drunk (which, in this case, he already was) or wait it out. 

“I think you and I have a different idea of what a fact is,” Mittermeyer said finally. He leaned back in his seat, enough for his head to brush Reuenthal’s extended arm. Absently, Reuenthal’s fingers twirled a lock of Mittermeyer’s hair.

“When I was a kid, on my birthday, my father would always take me out to my mother’s grave,” Reuenthal said after a long moment of silence. “‘This is your fault, I wish you’d never been born,’ et cetera.”

“Did she die when you were born?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Not of childbirth, no.” Reuenthal laughed a little. “She killed herself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Reuenthal said. “Did Mariendorf tell you that?” He looked at Yang.

“No, she didn’t tell me anything,” Yang said. “Aside from telling me that I should trust my wife, when I got one.”

“Hah. There’s no such thing as a woman you can trust.”

“What do you mean?” Mittermeyer asked.

“My mother was a young woman. My father was an older man. He had money that she wanted, so they got married.” Reuenthal closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, a posture he had adopted from Yang. Yang watched his throat move as he spoke, listening to the strain in Reuenthal’s voice. “Both of my parents had blue eyes. When I was born, everyone knew that my mother had some black eyed lover.”

“I don’t think--” Yang began, but Mittermeyer shook his head to shut him up.

“She tried to carve out my eye so that no one would see it,” Reuenthal said. “Someone stopped her before she could, obviously. And then she killed herself later, because she couldn’t bear to look at what she’d brought into the world.”

There was silence around the table. Mittermeyer stared down into his beer. Yang stared at Reuenthal across the table.

“Who told you that story?” Yang asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“My father loved to tell it. In great detail.”

“And you believe him?” Yang asked. He leaned forward over the table pushing his beer glass to the side.

“It’s the truth.”

“It is not the truth,” Yang said. “It is not the truth.” He shook his head, feeling dizzy-drunk but sure about this. 

Reuenthal cracked his eyes open and looked at Yang. “You weren’t there.”

“And you can’t possibly remember,” Yang said.

“But my father does.”

“And what reason does he have to tell you that story? What is there for him to gain?”

“He’s miserable, and wants to make me understand what I did.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Mittermeyer interjected. “You were a baby.”

Yang’s tongue was clumsy in his mouth, but he needed to say his piece. “Listen, Reuenthal. Here’s a different story,” he said. “There’s a man who’s obsessed with the idea that his wife is cheating on him, he thinks about it all the time, he makes her feel guilty and hated for something that she might not even be doing, she can’t leave him because she’s his wife, and she’s pregnant. When the baby is born, he has two different colored eyes. It happens! But the man takes that as proof that she’s been unfaithful. He gets drunk, he tells her to her face, she can’t bear it, she kills herself. The man doesn’t want to believe that it’s his fault, so he blames it on her, he blames it on his son, he tells a story to make that feel true.” Yang felt out of breath by the time he finished speaking. “That might not be true either, but it’s more right than the other story is.”

“You don’t know anything,” Reuenthal said. For the first time, Yang heard real malice in Reuenthal’s tone, but he didn’t back off.

“Neither do you,” Yang said.

“I know my father.”

“And I know you shouldn’t listen to people who hate you.”

“Who else am I supposed to listen to?”

“Listen to Mittermeyer, if you won’t listen to me,” Yang said, slouching back against the wall. 

“And do you want to tell me a fantastical story about my birth?” Reuenthal asked, turning to Mittermeyer.

“I think it’s a good thing you were born,” Mittermeyer said, shaking his head. “That’s all that matters.”

“That is a fantastical story.”

“It’s not,” Yang said.

“Oh, I have a good one,” Reuenthal said, mood suddenly changing into something more menacing than sad. “Since we’re all making up fake stories about our births, here’s one about our good friend, Hank von Leigh.”

“Reuenthal,” Mittermeyer said, a warning tone in his voice.

“No, go ahead,” Yang said. “I’d love to hear the truth.”

“I combed through Phezzan newspapers, you know,” Reuenthal said. “For our game. I was mostly looking for economics stuff. When you invaded through the Phezzan corridor, Eisenach had me compile a list of merchant vessels operating off the planet.”

“What are you talking about?” Mittermeyer asked, genuinely confused.

“I had to go back a couple years, to get a good idea of the ships. It’s not like every one’s manifest shows up in every paper,” Reuenthal continued. “And I saw something that caught my eye.” He looked at Yang, staring straight at him. “A very familiar name.”

“Stop it, Reuenthal,” Mittermeyer said, slapping the table hard enough to jangle the glasses. “That’s enough.” 

Reuenthal looked over at him. “Oh, you don’t want to know?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “I don’t.”

“Fine,” Reuenthal said, and stopped talking. There was a new, awkward silence around the table. Yang looked at Mittermeyer and gave a kind of apologetic shrug. He wasn’t angry at Reuenthal-- he probably shouldn’t have provoked him by talking about his past. Yang knew it was a touchy subject, and today was a touchy day.

“Should we go?” Mittermeyer asked. “It’s getting late.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Yang said. 

Reuenthal was silent. Mittermeyer flagged the waitress down and paid their tab.

The three walked with varying degrees of unsteadiness out of the bar and onto the street. Reuenthal swayed on his feet so much that Mittermeyer was compelled to wedge himself up next to him, which made Yang take Reuenthal’s other side for moral support. The snow was falling much more heavily now, their footprints disappearing from the sidewalk almost as soon as they lifted their feet.

“Cold as shit,” Mittermeyer muttered under his breath.

“Little further,” Yang said. “Come on.”

They hauled Reuenthal up to his dorm, and, again, Mittermeyer used his key to unlock the room. Reuenthal entered without a word, then closed the door in their faces, scowling. Yang and Mittermeyer stood in the hallway awkwardly for a moment.

“I’ll walk you back to the junior dorms,” Yang said. 

“Why?”

“We should talk.”

Mittermeyer frowned, but nodded, and Yang followed him out, back into the cold. They stood outside the junior dorms for a minute, in the entryway shielded from the wind and snow that blew past in great white gusts illuminated by the dorm door light.

“Are you upset at Reuenthal?” Mittermeyer asked. “I’m sorry on his behalf.”

“No, it’s fine,” Yang said. “If he remembers any of this, he’ll apologize in the morning.”

Mittermeyer nodded. “Sucks about his mom.”

Yang pulled his beanie off his head and scrunched it in his hands, snowflakes landing then melting in his black hair. “Yeah. Look, Mittermeyer, I guess you should know--”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“No, it’s better if I do. I warned you I would get drunk one night and tell you.” Yang shrugged and stared out at the white snow that faded into sheer black nothingness about thirty paces from where they stood. His voice was flat as he recited the list of facts. “My name’s not Hank von Leigh. It’s Yang Wen-li. I’m not from Phezzan. I’m from Heinessen. My father was a merchant operating between there and Phezzan. When his ship was destroyed, he left a lot of debt. You know, on Phezzan, the law is that anyone who benefited from a loan is responsible for paying it back. I benefitted by living in comfort as my father’s son for years-- they were going to hold me responsible. There’s a warrant out for my arrest. So I ran away.” Yang shrugged. “That’s the whole story. It’s not that exciting.”

Mittermeyer looked at him with something that might have been pity. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine. I trust you. And Reuenthal.”

“Even though he just tried to…?”

“He wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been you he was telling it to,” Yang said. “He can be mean, but he’s not stupid. But thank you for trying to protect me, I guess.”

“What a mess.”

Yang didn’t know exactly what Mittermeyer was referring to, but he said, “Yeah.”

“I’m going to have the worst headache tomorrow.”

“Drink some water,” Yang said again.

“I think it’s too late for that.” Mittermeyer shook his head, then his face changed as though he had remembered something. “Oh, Leigh, I was going to ask you--”

“What?” Yang asked.

“Do you want to come to my house over winter break?”

“I think the Mariendorfs were going to invite me,” Yang said.

“I know, that’s why I’m asking first.”

“Why?”

Mittermeyer frowned at the ground and kicked at a snowdrift near the door. “It would be a big favor to me. Please?”

Yang stared at him, not really understanding. “Can you explain?”

Mittermeyer sighed. “My parents have this girl living in my house. I just need someone else to be like, a distraction. Can you?”

Yang ran his hand through his hair. “A distraction?”

“A buffer. You know. Something to talk about other than paying attention to me.”

“Why can’t you ask Reuenthal?”

“He’d say no. And I don’t think--” Mittermeyer shook his head again. “It wouldn’t look good.”

“And I would?”

“Yeah. You know.”

“Can I think about it? I do like the Mariendorfs.”

“They keep you over the summer, though.”

“We’re going into service as soon as we graduate at the end of the year.”

“If you can’t do it, I understand.”

“Just let me think about it, okay?”

* * *

_December, 478 IC, Odin_

In the end, Yang did end up respectfully declining the Mariendorfs’ invitation to stay with them over winter break, though he expressed his sincere regret while doing so, and said that he would spend at least a day visiting with them. He did like the count, and he adored the now nine year old Hildegarde, though he couldn’t understand what either of them saw in him to make them continue to invite him around for summer and winter breaks. But Mittermeyer had asked him so pleadingly that Yang couldn’t help but acquiesce to his friend’s demand.

He knocked on Mittermeyer’s dorm door, holding his lightly packed travel bag in his hand. There was a minor sound of movement from inside the room, Mittermeyer’s muffled voice called out, “One second,” though Yang waited about thirty seconds before a rather mussed looking Mittermeyer pulled the door open. Reuenthal was sitting at the desk, looking as cool and collected as ever.

Yang stepped inside and shut the door behind himself. “Saying your goodbyes?” he asked, with the particular sardonic twist in his voice he used whenever he thought that Reuenthal and Mittermeyer weren’t being discreet enough.

“Just packing,” Mittermeyer said, and cleared his throat.

Yang tossed his own bag on the bed, then sat down on it. “When are you leaving, Reuenthal?” he asked.

“After you,” Reuenthal said, and provided no further detail. This didn’t surprise Yang, who just nodded.

“If you do decide to come back here early, let me know. I at least can probably make some kind of excuse to join you.”

“You’d abandon me?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Don’t say you wouldn’t do the same, if you had the opportunity,” Yang said.

“We’ll see about when I get back here,” Reuenthal said. “I will make an attempt to enjoy what is possibly the last vacation of my life.”

“You could make such a thing sound less like a death sentence,” Mittermeyer said. He returned to actually packing, taking clothes out of his closet and folding them neatly into his travel bag. He packed even lighter than Yang had, since they were going to his house, where most of his non-uniform clothes were stored.

Mittermeyer’s phone, sitting on his bedside table, rang, and Yang looked at the caller and tossed the phone to Mittermeyer, who adeptly caught and answered it. This left Reuenthal and Yang in the rather awkward position of listening to their friend’s half of the phone call. They glanced at each other, Reuenthal with a slight smile.

“Hey, Dad,” Mittermeyer said. “Yeah, I’m just finishing packing. Yes, he’s ready. Uh, how far away are you? Okay, yeah. Give me a minute. There’s room in the car, right?” A slight pause, then Mittermeyer laughed, a sound that rang false even to Yang. “No, I didn’t-- Okay. Yeah. I’ll be there in a second. See you. Bye.” He hung up and put his phone in his pocket. “My dad’s parked outside.”

“I gathered,” Reuenthal said.

“Want to meet him?” he asked.

“I have no desire to do so,” Reuenthal said. “That pleasure, as it were, can belong to Leigh.” Reuenthal stood. “I should make my quick exit, before I get drawn into something against my will.” He put his hand on Mittermeyer’s shoulder, and they turned towards each other, Mittermeyer looking up, Reuenthal looking down, and they kissed, very briefly. Yang had mastered the art of looking and not looking at the same time.

“Have a good break,” Mittermeyer said.

Reuenthal just nodded. “See you in a bit.”

“Take care of yourself,” Yang said, meeting Reuenthal’s eyes.

“I will.” And with that, he was out the door and gone.

Mittermeyer sighed, placed his hands on his cheeks, and examined himself in the wall mirror. “Do I look normal?” he asked Yang.

“Er. Yes?” Yang said. “Brush your hair.”

Mittermeyer, whose comb was already packed away in his bag, ran his hands through his hair. Yang picked up a hair tie from his desk and passed it to him, and Mittermeyer tied his hair back into a ponytail. “My dad will probably tell me to get a haircut,” he said.

Yang didn’t really have a response to that. His own father, when he had been alive, could not possibly have cared less how Yang had worn his hair—hence his perpetual shaggy mop that Yang occasionally took a pair of scissors to when it got too annoying.

“You ready?” Yang asked, when it seemed like Mittermeyer was glancing around his room for whatever last objects he needed to stick in his bag.

“Yeah. I guess.” The reluctance in his voice was palpable. The pair left Mittermeyer’s dorm, bracing themselves against the weather outside. It was one of those winter days that was crystal clear for its coldness, each detail of the brick dorm buildings looking sharper than they ever had before. As they walked across the shoveled path through the snow-covered green, Mittermeyer glanced to his left, towards the senior dorm building, perhaps hoping to catch a last glimpse of Reuenthal before they headed out. Reuenthal’s room window was just as inscrutably dark as all the rest, though.

There was one car idling in the parking lot at the rear of the building and, when the two students approached, the front door opened. A mustached older man who bore little resemblance to Mittermeyer stepped out and smiled. “Wolf, glad you finally made it out,” he said. “Is this your friend?”

“Hah. Yeah. Dad, this is my friend, Hank von Leigh, Leigh, this is my dad.”

Yang dropped his bag on the ground unceremoniously to shake hands with Mittermeyer’s father. He had a crushing and heavily calloused grip. “Nice to meet you, Herr Mittermeyer.”

“Where are you from, von Leigh?”

“I told you, dad,” Mittermeyer said, looking at Yang with a pained expression.

“Phezzan, sir,” Yang said. He was very used to that question after almost four years of living in the Empire. It bothered Mittermeyer much more than it bothered him.

“Ah, no wonder you don’t go home for break. That’s a long way.”

Yang just nodded. There was no reason to say that he didn’t even really have a home on Phezzan. “Thank you for having me, sir.”

“No need to thank me. A friend of Wolf’s is a friend of mine. Here, let’s not stand out in the weather any more than we need to.” He popped open the trunk and took Yang and his son’s bags, tossing them in. “It’s a bit of a drive, unfortunately.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” Yang said, and let himself into the back seat of the car. He was intending to sleep through the drive, but Mittermeyer’s father seemed insistent on filling up any speck of silence with questions towards his son or Yang. Yang got the impression that he and Mittermeyer were both being tested somehow, and Yang had no idea if he was passing the test or not. His natural instinct, as the questions became more grating, was to lean his head on the window and answer in monosyllables, but he tried to squash that instinct for Mittermeyer’s sake.

Along the way, Yang learned a lot about Mittermeyer’s father (an environmental engineer with a passion for gardening), Mittermeyer’s mother (a teacher and an apparently excellent cook), and the girl who was living in Mittermeyer’s house-- a very distant maternal relative named Evangeline who was two years younger than Mittermeyer himself. Yang also learned exactly how uncomfortable he could get, as Mittermeyer’s father asked about every aspect of the engineering classes at the IOA, and Mittermeyer answered with less and less passion as time went on. Mittermeyer’s father hadn’t lied when he had said it was a long drive. It took them about five hours to get from the IOA to Mittermeyer’s house, a nice little plot of land in the very outskirts of the suburbs, several districts away.

They got out of the car, and Yang busied himself with getting the bags from the trunk, as Mittermeyer and his father went into the house. “Mom, I’m home!” Mittermeyer yelled.

There was a veritable trampling of feet, then a woman’s voice, “Wolf!”

Yang turned and saw a petite blonde woman throw herself on Mittermeyer, who flinched back as though she were about to hit him. She embraced him. “Er, hi Evangeline,” Mittermeyer said. “How have you been?”

“Good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Just for a little while,” Mittermeyer said. “Oh, Evangeline, this is my friend, Hank von Leigh.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Fraulein,” Yang said, then wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. If Evangeline had been a man, they would have shook, or if Yang had been Reuenthal, he probably would have kissed her hand, but Yang instead was frozen in a kind of stasis. He couldn’t remember the last time he had interacted with a woman even close to his own age. Luckily, Evangeline seemed to accept that he was holding a bag in both his hands.

“Do you want me to take that for you? I set up the guest bedroom,” she asked.

“Oh, er, thank you,” Yang said. He passed her his bag, and then handed Mittermeyer his. Evangeline smiled up at Mittermeyer for another moment, then ran off into the house, bare feet pounding on the wooden floor. 

“She’s a sweet girl,” Mittermeyer’s father said. “Thinks the world of you, Wolf.”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. He showed Yang inside. The house was warm and there was the smell of something delicious cooking. Down the hall, a thin faced blonde woman wearing an apron emerged from the lit kitchen. She smiled and came forward, hugging Mittermeyer, who reciprocated this time. Yang stood awkwardly back as Mittermeyer’s mother smoothed her hands down Mittermeyer’s arms and examined him. 

“You look healthy, Wolf,” she said. “You didn’t get caught in traffic on the way, did you?”

“No, it was an easy drive,” Mittermeyer’s father said, hanging up his coat. He kissed his wife briefly. “Dinner soon?”

“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “I’ll have Eva set the table.” She turned to Yang. “And you must be Herr von Leigh,” she said with a smile. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Nice to meet you, Frau Mittermeyer,” Yang said. “I hope Mittermeyer, er, Wolfgang, only tells you the good parts.”

She laughed. “Of course. Please, let me take your coat. Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you for having me over,” Yang said.

“It’s my pleasure. I couldn’t let one of Wolf’s friends stay in that dreary old school alone over winter break.” Yang smiled and did not mention the fact that he usually went to the Mariendorfs’ house.

“You have a lovely home,” Yang said.

“Thank you, thank you.”

Yang had provided enough of a distraction to allow Mittermeyer to escape upstairs, and though he counted that as a success, that meant that Yang was now trapped in the awkward social situation of being shown into the living room and sat down. He had to mentally reframe his way of processing all his interactions in this space: he wasn’t going to be able to beat a tactical retreat-- he had to be ready to take up rear guard manoeuvers for Mittermeyer to do so. So he smiled and made yet more friendly yet awkward conversation as he stared into the roaring hearth.

At dinner, Mittermeyer’s mother pressed Mittermeyer into sitting next to Evangeline. When no one was looking, Yang gave Mittermeyer an apologetic smile. There was only so much he could help with. But he tried to keep the dinner conversation light, and told everyone the now amusing story about how Staden eventually decided to let Yang, his most infuriating student, TA his class. He could be a gracious dinner guest, so long as the topics stayed on things that he was familiar with discussing.

Afterwards, everyone moved into the living room, and when Yang saw that Evangeline was about ten seconds away from sitting uncomfortably close to Mittermeyer on the couch, Yang took the initiative and the seat that she was aiming for. There was a large, decorative mirror hung above the fireplace, and in it, Yang caught the reflection of Mittermeyer’s mother behind him, frowning at Yang’s maneuver, probably thinking that Yang couldn’t see her expression. 

When it got late, Mittermeyer showed Yang to the guest bedroom, and loitered in his doorway for a minute as Yang fished around in his bag for his pyjamas. He kept the door open, so they couldn’t talk very freely.

“Thanks for coming,” Mittermeyer said. “I mean it.”

“You’re welcome,” Yang said. They shared a look, and Yang tried to communicate to Mittermeyer that he understood the stifling atmosphere of the place, the weight of expectations that his parents pressed upon him, and the secret that perhaps his mother already seemed to fear.

“Let’s go ice skating tomorrow,” Mittermeyer said. “You can borrow my dad’s skates.”

“I’ve never--” Yang said, but Mittermeyer just smiled broadly and walked away.

* * *

They did go ice skating the next day, on a frozen lake about a kilometer away from Mittermeyer’s house. Yang accessorized his warmest outfit (his cadet uniform) with a borrowed red scarf. He ended up borrowing Mittermeyer’s skates (since they wore the same size shoe), and Mittermeyer wore his dad’s, stuffing an extra pair of socks down in the too-long toes.

“I’ll make that sacrifice,” Mittermeyer said. “Since you’ve apparently never been skating before.”

“When would I have even had the opportunity?” Yang asked as he sat down in the snow to pull the skates on. 

Evangeline had come with them, upon the urging of Mittermeyer’s mother, and she giggled a little as Yang took his first hesitant, wobbly steps out onto the ice. His feet slipped out from under him, and he fell immediately, crashing his tailbone into the ice.

“Ow,” he said with as flat of a voice as he could muster, disguising how much the fall had actually hurt.

“Come on, old man,” Mittermeyer said and helped him back up. Yang held heavily onto Mittermeyer’s steady arm, with Evangeline darting a few steps ahead of them, until Yang had some of the movement down and Mittermeyer could let him be free. 

Though Yang had to focus on his own clumsy movements, he still was able to look up and watch Mittermeyer. He seemed to be delighting in his own freedom of movement, swooping across the glittering surface of the lake, moving faster than Yang could have imagined, occasionally turning in tight circles, taking light little hops into the air, or skating backwards. Yang understood once again what Reuenthal saw in him-- his broad smile, the way every action he took conveyed his complete sincerity in taking it. He skated circles around Evangeline, not letting her catch up to him. 

Mittermeyer was inexhaustible, but eventually Evangeline tired of trying to skate with him, and Yang tired of trying to skate, and both of them sat down on the lake edge. Yang retrieved his thermos from his bag and poured a cup of hot tea, which he handed to Evangeline. 

“You skate very well,” he said.

“Thanks. You do, too.” 

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Yang said. “I’m certainly not as good as he is.” As Yang said, this, Mittermeyer crouched low, racing across the ice as fast as possible.

“Nobody’s as good as Wolf.”

“Perhaps,” Yang said. “You like him?”

Evangeline flushed and looked down at the tea mug in her hands. “That’s a presumptuous thing to ask, Herr von Leigh,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Yang said. “I didn’t mean to offend.”

She laughed. “It’s fine. Yes. He’s very handsome, don’t you think?”

Yes, said Yang internally. “Sure, if you think so,” said Yang aloud.

“He’ll make a good husband for whoever gets him,” she said, her voice tinged with something odd. “He’s smart. He’ll have a good career.”

“You aren’t worried about marrying a soldier?” He remembered that she was a war orphan, of some sort.

“You think I have a chance with him?” she asked. “He doesn’t like me.”

“I’m sure he likes you fine, Fraulein,” Yang said.

“I’m having more of a conversation with you than I have had with him since I’ve lived here.”

“Then I’m not sure what basis you have to like him on,” Yang said, rather confused. He scratched his head. “Look, Fraulein…”

“You’re good friends with him, right?”

“Yeah,” Yang said.

“Does he have a girl at school?”

“What? Oh, no,” Yang said. 

“What does he like? If you think I have a chance with him, what do you think I should do?”

“I don’t know.” He was feeling trapped in this intensely awkward conversation, and he unscrewed the lid from his thermos and drank straight out of it, burning his mouth. “I think if you just try to be his friend, talk to him like anybody else, you might have an easier time.”

“Hm.” She stared out at Mittermeyer, who turned so tightly on the ice that they could hear the scrape of the blades from a hundred yards away. “I think Frau Mittermeyer wants him to like me.”

“You live with him-- I’m sure that she just wants everyone to get along.”

Evangeline sighed and shook her head. “You’re funny, Herr von Leigh.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” She turned to him and smiled. “It’s nice to have someone else to talk to.”

“Do you want my honest advice?” Yang asked, thinking that maybe he could do Mittermeyer a favor with this conversation.

“Sure.”

“I think if you push him less, he’ll probably be happier to talk to you. And wait to see if you actually like talking to him, before you decide that you want to marry him.”

“I like listening to him.”

“That’s not everything,” Yang said. “You’re seventeen?”

“Yeah.”

“If I were Mittermeyer-- Wolfgang-- I think… I’d be nervous that a stranger moved into my house and is expecting to be familiar with me. Just give him time and space, okay? Not everything has to be rushed into, and he has a lot on his mind.”

“And you think that will help?”

“I think it will help him feel more comfortable around you. Everything else?” Yang shrugged.

“You’re presumptuous, thinking you can give a lady advice,” Evangeline said, but she was smiling.

“Sorry,” Yang said.

“You can apologize after I take the advice and it all goes terribly wrong.”

“It could hardly go worse than it is,” Yang said. “It’s worth a try, and not having big expectations will probably make you less stressed about it.”

“Not all of us can let go of expectations like that. Can you?”

“Oh, I try.” Yang smiled. “But then again, I’m a deeply lazy man. Hoping that things will happen correctly seems like too much mental effort. Better to just deal with things as they come.”

“Is that the philosophy they teach you at the Officers’ school?”

“Absolutely not,” Yang said with a laugh. “Shall we skate again, Fraulein?”

“Sure, Herr von Leigh.” He tried to get to his feet in his skates, and ended up having to lean on her arm, which made her laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You are humbly invited to compare and contrast the home lives of our three main characters. 
> 
> Title is obviously another mountain goats song, because I have a small brain that is made up about 50% of thinking about how to best repurpose tmg lyrics for use in other things.
> 
> You will go ice skating and you will think gay thoughts.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. There's no ice skating in my original science fiction, but it does have a lot of other stuff: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	12. Custody of the Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A certain tag is earned in this chapter. Please read the list carefully and decide if you want to continue.

_May, 479 IC, Odin_

“Leigh, can I speak to you for a minute?” Staden asked. Yang was at the front of the SW classroom, juggling all the data disks and papers that had been passed in to him last minute from the engineering cohort. He wasn’t looking forward to grading them, but he would have to, regardless of his personal feelings on the matter.

“Of course, sir,” Yang said. “In your office?”

“Whenever you have a second,” Staden said, then headed out of the classroom, towards his office a few floors up.

Yang finished collating all the messy paperwork and jammed it into his bag, then made his way up to Staden’s office. He knocked on the door. “Come in.” He opened the door, saluted, and Staden waved at him to sit down.

“Was there something you needed, sir?” Yang asked.

Staden steepled his hands on his desk and looked at his rather wan and exhausted looking TA. “Have you been getting enough sleep, von Leigh?”

“No, sir,” Yang said. “But I turned in my thesis this morning, so I should be fine now.”

“Oh, right, I forgot that you’re also in the history cohort.” He squinted at Yang. “I’m not sure how you’ve survived double coursework, working for me, and GMing your little game.”

“That last one isn’t very hard, sir,” Yang said. “Mittermeyer is good but not particularly surprising, so I don’t have to do too much research.”

“It was very kind of you to let him take a turn as ‘Fleet Admiral’,” Staden said with a wry smile.

“He can have the title,” Yang said. “I was never very attached to it.”

“Still, the fact remains: you’ve done an admirable job as a student here.”

“Thank you very much, sir.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Staden said, “but I’ve taken a bit of an interest in your career.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

“As a teacher here, I do have some sway when it comes to recommending my students be placed in assignments I feel like they will do well in. I felt like this was a particularly important duty of mine, in your case.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, sir,” Yang said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine wherever I’m assigned.”

“I’m not entirely certain that that is true. Besides, I’m not stepping far out of my usual purview. I also helped some of your friends find positions that suited their particular… profiles,” Staden said. “It was a real headache finding someone who was willing to take Eisenach.”

Yang laughed. “He wrote to me a while ago. He’s doing well, so thank you on his behalf.”

“He’s talented, but refusing to talk isn’t going to win him any friends.”

“Apparently, it helps his reputation among the enlisted men. They don’t bother him because they think he’s terrifying.”

Staden laughed. “I am glad to hear it.”

“Are you going to find a position for Reuenthal?” Yang asked.

“No, he’s number one. There will be plenty of people who will take him, and I think that he can carve himself out a niche wherever he ends up. In terms of your other friends…” Staden thought for a second. “Wahlen will be fine. He’s capable and steady, which means that he’ll do well almost anywhere. Bittenfeld, I’ve found somewhere that will keep him constantly busy, which should keep him out of trouble. But you’re not here to talk about them,” Staden said.

“I really don’t need or want special treatment,” Yang said.

“It’s not special treatment,” Staden said. “If I let you loose into the world, and you ended up with a CO who hated you on sight, that would ruin your career. You’re too talented for that to be the case.”

“May I say something, sir?” Yang asked.

“Go ahead.”

“You didn’t like me, either. I’m sure that I would be able to…” He stopped when he saw the look on Staden’s face, a mixture of annoyance and appraisal.

“Here’s an unfortunate fact about the Imperial military,” Staden said. “Not everyone is willing to respect ability. Names go a lot further than they should, and talent often falls short when it comes to earning a person a reputation.”

“I see.” Yang was tempted to protest that he didn’t care about earning a reputation, but he felt that kind of thing would fall on completely deaf ears.

“So, in order to not completely waste you, I have found you a position. Don’t tell anyone about this yet, because postings aren’t supposed to be announced until graduation, but it’s about as sure of a thing as it can be.”

“Thank you for your trouble, sir.”

“It’s no trouble. An old friend of mine, Commodore Merkatz, is in need of an adjutant. You’ll fit the bill nicely, Sub-lieutenant von Leigh.”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “What’s he like, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Hm. I think it’s hard to get a sense of him. People tend to either love him or hate him, and they decide that immediately upon meeting him. He’s competent, tough, but fair. He should be a rear admiral by now, in my opinion. I think you’ll get along. He doesn’t punish people for showing initiative, as long as it works out.”

“I’ve never had much of that,” Yang said. “Initiative, I mean.”

“I think that is completely untrue,” Staden said. “Just as a personal word of advice, try not to speak so negatively of yourself when you graduate.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve done an excellent job as my TA. I’d say that you will be wasted as a soldier and that you should be a teacher, but perhaps that’s not true.”

“In a fairer world,” Yang said.

“Or just a different one.”

“Thank you for giving me the opportunity, regardless.”

“Hardly. I always have to fight to find people with the patience to endlessly grade postmortems—it shocked me that you were so willing.”

“I enjoy seeing how other people think situations should play out. It’s interesting.”

“You’re a unique man, von Leigh,” Staden said. “I look forward to seeing what you do in the future.”

“I hope whatever it is includes an early retirement and a nice pension.”

Staden shook his head. “My patience for your antics remains limited, I see,” Staden said, which was as clear of a dismissal as Yang had ever heard. “Let me know when you’ve finished grading the last batch. I need to have final grades in by the twentieth.”

“I’ll get it done,” Yang said. He stood, and Staden did as well, reaching out to shake hands.

“Congratulations on your graduation, sub-lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” Yang replied.

* * *

Yang left Staden’s office and immediately returned to his dorm, where he flopped onto his bed and passed out before he could even pull the blanket up over himself. He woke to a pounding on his door and the hazy twilight seeping in through the window.

“What?” Yang yelled at whoever was knocking. “Can’t a man sleep?”

“No!” Mittermeyer yelled back. “Time to celebrate the end of classes. Open the door before I break it down.”

Yang picked up the nearest book from his desk and chucked it at the door, where it hit with a limp thud. He pulled his pillow over his head and tried to ignore Mittemeyer, who was now speaking with Reuenthal.

“Anyone have a paperclip?” Reuenthal asked.

“In my room,” Wahlen said. “Want me to get it?”

“Von Leigh, open the door before I pick your lock and drag you out of there,” Reuenthal said.

“How do you know how to pick locks?” Bittenfeld asked. There was no response from Reuenthal, so Yang had to assume he was smiling his usual ‘don’t ask me any more questions’ smile.

He realized that his friends were not going to give up, so Yang reluctantly rolled out of bed and opened the door.

“Enjoy your nap?” Mittermeyer asked, looking at Yang’s rumpled uniform and extreme bedhead.

“Of course,” Yang said. “Move.” He pushed through his huddled group of friends towards the bathroom, where he splashed water on his face until he felt like more of a human.

When he emerged, Bittenfeld wrapped his arm around Yang’s shoulder and said, “We are going to Joseph’s to get drunker than we have ever been before.”

“You know everyone else is having that exact same idea, right?” Yang asked.

“We’re seniors,” Bittenfeld said. “We get priority.”

“I—” Yang began, but he was already being hauled away down the hallway.

Joseph’s was extremely crowded by the time they arrived, and while outside the bar the night was the quiet gentleness of late spring, inside the place was hazy and chaotic, filled with students shouting and laughing. There weren’t any tables left, so Yang and his friends all ended up standing around a pool table, the one that nobody wanted to use because one of its legs was shimmed up with six crumpled cardboard coasters. That didn’t stop Mittermeyer and Bittenfeld from immediately setting up and starting a game, though.

“You sleeping in made us late,” Wahlen said to Yang.

“Sorry,” Yang said apologetically. “First round’s on me?”

“That’s more like it,” Wahlen said with a grin. Yang went up to the bar and acquired beers for everyone, pushing through a veritable horde of his classmates to do so. He passed the beverages out.

“What are you going to do without us all when we’re gone?” Reuenthal asked Mittermeyer, leaning on the side of the pool table.

Bittenfeld shoved him. “Get off, you’re making the thing tilt.” Reuenthal ignored him and Bittenfeld gave up, though he glowered at the number two ball that was in fact rolling ever so slowly down the table.

“I think a better question would be to ask what you’re going to do without me,” Mittermeyer said, lining up a shot.

“We’re all going to go on and be wildly successful, while you’re stuck at school,” Wahlen said. “Pity you’re not in our class.”

“Can’t change the star you’re born under,” Mittermeyer said. “Besides, if I was in your year, we’d have to be fighting over who’s number one.”

Reuenthal laughed. “And who would win that fight?”

“Von Leigh,” Bittenfeld and Wahlen said simultaneously. Yang shook his head in protest.

“You wound me,” Reuenthal said. “Pretend Leigh gets stuck at third, just like he’s stuck at second now. Which of us wins then?”

“Mittermeyer would have first, because he takes more classes than you do,” Yang said bluntly. “But it would be a tie in SW.”

“I feel like my honor as first is being impugned,” Reuenthal said, but he was smiling.

“A toast to Reuenthal’s wounded pride, then,” Mittermeyer said and raised his beer. Yang, Bittenfeld, and Wahlen also raised their glasses, but Reuenthal just shook his head.

“Are you going to keep playing our game when we leave?” Yang asked.

“I don’t know,” Mittermeyer said. “I guess I’ll see if anyone else still wants to play next year. It won’t be the same without you.”

“You’ll have to GM,” Yang said.

“I could force Bayerlein to,” Mittermeyer said, but that was an empty threat. He paused. “Man, now you are making me sad that you’re leaving.”

“Tell Staden you want to TA for him next year,” Yang said. “That will keep you so busy you’ll hardly even miss us.”

“You really think I hate myself that much?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Being on Staden’s good side has its perks,” Yang said, thinking about his conversation earlier.

Their talk moved on to less serious topics, and by time he was on his third beer, Yang was feeling warm and light, though tinged with the creeping kind of nostalgia that had the potential to sour the night. There might never be another time like this again, with all of his friends around.

Of course, the relative peace of the night was not to last. In the crowded bar, it was unavoidable that certain other members of the senior class would be around, also getting progressively drunker as the night went on. Gautier and his crew were sitting at the bar itself, far enough away from Yang and his friends that there were other groups of students standing in between, but close enough that they could see each other. They had been shooting the occasional glare over during the entire night, especially at Wahlen, who had managed to cement his spot in the hotly contested third place position.

When Bittenfeld got a little too rowdy and perched himself on the pool table, raising a glass and toasting to the number one, number two, and number three, that was too much for Gautier, and he stood up from his seat, followed closely by Ansbach and Deitch.

Reuenthal just raised an eyebrow at them as they came over. Mittermeyer, who had less personal experience with them, asked, “You here to toast to your valedictorian as well?”

“It’s hardly a position he deserves,” Gautier said.

“Oh?” Reuenthal asked. “And what makes you say that?”

“So many reasons,” Gautier said, shaking his head. “It would be impossible to list them all.”

“Go ahead, start listing,” Bittenfeld said, leaning towards Gautier from the top of the pool table. “But if you say that one of them is because you could beat Reuenthal, I’m afraid I’ll have to punch you for that one.”

“Threatening violence right before graduation?” Ansbach asked. “Let’s not be hasty.”

“I want to hear your reasons,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m curious as to what you could possibly have to say.”

“You really want to know?” Gautier asked. “I suppose I should tell you, since you seem oblivious.”

“Spit it out,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m getting bored already.”

“Reuenthal only keeps his spot because von Leigh put him there and keeps him there,” Gautier said. 

Bittenfeld snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’m serious,” Gautier said. “Leigh loses to him on purpose, and tells him exactly how to win against everyone else. Maybe he even uses his position as Staden’s little minion to change class grades.” Gautier shrugged, a slick grin on his face.

“You seem awfully confident about something incredibly dumb sounding,” Wahlen said. “Why the hell would Leigh do that?”

“Use your eyes! Isn’t it obvious?”

“Isn’t what obvious?” Reuenthal asked, now with ice in his tone.

“We’ve all seen the way that Leigh looks at you,” Gautier said. “It couldn’t be clearer that he has a little faggot crush on you, and you’ve been leading him on for your own benefit.”

There was a shocked silence from everyone standing around the pool table. Yang’s face flushed, and his hands, holding his glass, suddenly didn’t know what to do with themselves. He couldn’t look at Gautier; he couldn’t look at Reuenthal. 

Mittermeyer’s eyes narrowed. Wahlen grabbed Bittenfeld’s arm to stop him from lunging at Gautier, acting as a kind of external self-control.

“You aren’t going to defend yourself, Leigh?” Gautier asked, a shit eating grin on his face. “I see that I’m right, then.”

“It was a shame that Reuenthal was around to rescue you, freshman year,” Ansbach said idly. But that was the last straw for Reuenthal, who lunged across the pool table and grabbed Ansbach by the collar, pulling him forward.

“If I had seen you do it, you would be dead,” Reuenthal said.

“Do what?” Ansbach asked, still managing to keep his composure even when he was bent half forward over the table and unable to escape Reuenthal’s grip.

“He fell on his own quiver, isn’t that right?” Gautier said. 

Reuenthal shoved Ansbach back, and he stumbled backwards into Gautier, who caught him. “Still don’t have anything to say, Leigh?”

“He’s not going to dignify it with a response,” Mittermeyer said, glancing at Yang, who still hadn’t quite managed to get his reaction under control. It was all happening so fast, and so loud. He hadn’t ever imagined that he would be so obvious-- enough for Gautier and his crew to pick up-- Yang shook his head.

“Maybe Leigh didn’t mind getting shot,” Gautier said. “After all, he might want to be penetrated by Reuenthal’s arrow.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Reuenthal leapt over the pool table in one acrobatic movement and punched Gautier in the face. He stumbled back, but Ansbach was right there to swing back at Reuenthal, who ducked out of the way and kicked nimbly at Ansbach’s legs. 

By that time, Bittenfeld had unmoored himself from Wahlen and happily entered the fray, lunging at the recovering Gautier.

Deitch was closest to Yang, so Yang ended up getting socked upside the head; he had seen the punch coming and had ducked enough to avoid taking it in the face, but his head still snapped sideways and his ears rang for a second. Mittermeyer had made it around the table at that point, and jumped on Deitch’s back, grabbing him in a chokehold.

Though the fight started out as five against three, it didn’t stay that way for long. There were plenty of members of the senior class in the bar, and plenty of them were drunk, itching for something exciting to do, and had grudges against the top members of the class (simply for being the top members of the class). To see Reuenthal lose his composure was something that a lot of people had been wanting for a long time. Not everyone joined in against Reuenthal; some just joined in because they were looking for a reason to punch anybody.

The fight grew more vicious, drawing in more and more of the volatile crowd. Yang focused on not getting hit. For all his hand to hand class practice (hundreds of hours, at this point), Yang still couldn’t hold a candle to anyone else in the bar.

Wahlen smashed a bottle over someone’s head.

Reuenthal and Mittermeyer positioned themselves on either side of Yang, throwing punches in a way that made it look more like dancing than a drunken bar brawl had any right to look. Reuenthal seemed to be untouchable, despite the sheer number of people who came towards him.

Bittenfeld was pretty much lost in the fray-- only his bright red hair could be seen ducking and weaving among the crowd, though he yelled loud enough to be heard over the general din.

The whole thing seemed to last forever for Yang, who was overwhelmed by the chaos of it, but it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before the sound of sirens became clearer and clearer over the shouting crowd.

Reuenthal grabbed Yang’s arm. “That’s our signal to exit,” he yelled into Yang’s ear, then along with Mittermeyer, dragged him forward, barged through the bar’s little swinging service door, and past the partially-annoyed, partially-terrified waitstaff out through the kitchen. 

The night air was shockingly cold after the sweltering bar atmosphere, and Reuenthal didn’t let up running until they were quite safely away from the scene of the disaster.

“We lost Wahlen and Bittenfeld,” Yang panted when they came to a stop, somewhere inside Eaglehead park, he thought, though it was hard to tell in the darkness.

“They’ll either get out or they won’t,” Reuenthal said.

“They can’t arrest the entire senior class,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m surprised you ran.”

“They might not arrest everybody, but they would probably have to pick someone,” Reuenthal said, and he glanced at Yang. “There’s an obvious scapegoat.”

Mittermeyer shook his head. “Gautier won’t keep his mouth shut.”

“He will if he knows what’s good for him,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll kill that man.”

“Don’t,” Yang said. “It’s fine.” He was still taking deep breaths, and his words were more to convince himself than they were to convince Reuenthal. His hands were still shaking a little, and he ran one hand through his sweaty hair, as though that could steady himself.

“They’re idiots,” Mittermeyer said. “They obviously don’t know anything. Don’t let them bother you.”

Yang leaned back against a tree, tilting his head back so that the bark scraped the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What are you apologizing for?” Mittermeyer asked. “They started it.”

“I’ve been nothing but trouble for you since the day you met me,” Yang said. He opened his eyes and was finally able to look over at Reuenthal, face half obscured in the darkness. They shared a brief look, then Yang looked away again, down at the ground. “Punching him on my behalf makes it look like--” Yang began, shook his head, started again. “Don’t let me drag you down.”

“Please, tell me what else I was supposed to do,” Reuenthal said. 

“They weren’t suspicious of you,” Yang said. “Now they might use that against you.”

Mittermeyer placed a hand on Yang’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about us,” Mittermeyer said. “They aren’t suspicious of anything; they were just saying shit to get a rise out of people. I’m sure they just picked you because you’re the least likely to start a fight.”

Yang looked down at the ground. “They could have said anything else.”

“Yes, exactly,” Mittermeyer said. “They were just--”

“But they didn’t,” Yang said. “They know.”

“They don’t know shit,” Reuenthal said. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said again.

“There’s nothing you have to apologize for, so stop,” Reuenthal said. Yang looked at him again, this time with a kind of pleading, torn expression. “I’m serious, Wen-li.”

The use of Yang’s real name made Yang abruptly stop, and Mittermeyer looked between the two of them with mild confusion and concern written on his face. There was a moment of silence between them, and then Yang finally said, “I just didn’t think that anyone—that I was—I tried not to.”

“What are you talking about?” Mittermeyer asked. “Calm down, Leigh.”

Yang was a little calmer, now, actually. Something about the way that Reuenthal was looking at him helped. He took a deep breath and spoke slowly, putting the words in order so that he wouldn’t have to say it again. “I didn’t realize I was looking, and I didn’t realize that anyone else could see. I’ve been an idiot. I always have been.”

“Looking at Reuenthal?” Mittermeyer asked. At first, his voice was tinged with amusement, but then he looked between Yang and Reuenthal, and his face fell a little. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Yang said. “I would never—”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Reuenthal said.

“Is there something going on that I should know about?” Mittermeyer asked.

“No,” Reuenthal said.

“I don’t know,” Yang said. “No, there’s nothing going on. Not really.” He rubbed the back of his head again and didn’t look at anyone.

“I feel like I’m missing some part of this,” Mittermeyer said. He could have sounded hostile, but he didn’t.

“Before you got here,” Yang said, the words coming a little too easily now, though maybe they didn’t make any sense, “Reuenthal—we almost—but I was stupid about it and nothing happened. I never would do anything to get between you, and I thought I wasn’t, but I guess I’ve never been able to act normal.”

“You almost what?”

“I tried to kiss him while we were both very drunk, during our freshman year,” Reuenthal said, with a flat and unamused voice. “He fell off his desk backwards to avoid me. That was the extent of it.”

“Do you still have feelings for each other?” Mittermeyer asked. He didn’t sound that upset, mostly curious.

“No,” said Reuenthal, which hurt a lot more than Yang had been expecting.

“I thought I didn’t,” Yang said. “But if it’s that obvious to Gautier— maybe I’m just stupid.” He was lucky that it was dark out, because he was sure that his face was beet red with the weird flustered shame that this conversation was bringing up within him.

“It’s okay,” Mittermeyer said, awkwardly patting Yang’s shoulder. “I think Gautier was just talking out his ass and landed on the one thing that would actually upset you. Don’t worry about it.”

Yang shrugged miserably. “Sorry for all of this.”

“It’s fine,” Mittermeyer said again, his voice a little too light. “Seriously, Leigh, I would be a pretty terrible friend if I was bothered by this. You’ve never been anything less than absolutely trustworthy and honest.”

“I just don’t want to cause you any trouble,” Yang muttered, looking down at his feet.

“Getting to punch Gautier is not what I’d call trouble,” Reuenthal said. “I’ve wanted an excuse to do that for a long time.” That hadn’t been what Yang had meant, but he was glad that Reuenthal was willing to change the topic.

Mittermeyer grinned. “He had it coming to him.” A cool breeze swept through the trees, then, shifting leaves throwing new dappled moonlight across the trio. “We probably shouldn’t just stand here all night.”

Mittermeyer threw one arm across Yang’s shoulders and the other around Reuenthal’s back, a true ‘all is well’ type gesture. Yang wasn’t sure how to react, so first stiffened, then forced himself to relax a little. They walked that way until they exited the relative privacy of the forested park, then Mittermeyer dropped his arms out of an abundance of caution, though the three still walked very closely next to each other. The loss of the contact, a physical concession to secrecy, felt worse to Yang than his bruised temple.

“I can’t believe you’re graduating,” Mittermeyer said after a while. “This sucks.”

“We’d all have different assignments, even if we were in the same year,” Reuenthal said, though that was a thin comfort.

“You’re going to stay in touch, right?” Mittermeyer asked, hesitancy in his voice. This was clearly a more loaded question than just simply asking his friends to write to him.

Reuenthal glanced around the street to make sure that there was no one around, then looked down at Mittermeyer and grabbed his hand for a moment. “Of course,” he said.

Mittermeyer smiled, and turned to Yang. “And you’ll write, too?”

“Yeah,” Yang said. “Yeah, I will.”

“Then I suppose I’ll survive my senior year alone somehow,” Mittermeyer said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Custody of the eyes is a phrase that I stole from, well, I mean catholicism in general, but you should all go watch The Novitiate, which is a decent lesbian film about nuns. There are very few decent lesbian films in this world. In any event, in that film, there is a scene where the characters are instructed not to look at anyone else, because it makes you think about them. It's a scene that has stuck in my memory very clearly for several years. 
> 
> Gautier's last insult is kinda bad, but I needed him to say some ridiculous thing to get Reuenthal to punch him. Whatever.
> 
> Thanks to Lydia for the beta read. Read my original science fiction for more gay longing glances: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


	13. Pomp and Circumstance

_June, 479 IC, Odin_

Graduation itself was a subdued affair, which everyone attended, despite a significant fraction of the senior class spouting ugly, green-healing and fading bruises and scrapes. Everyone had gotten yelled at and reprimanded, but the IOA had decided that it would be a far worse image to not allow so many students to walk at graduation, so the verbal reprimand for fighting had ended up being the only punishment. It helped that in the confusion of the fight and resulting breaking up of the fight by the police, no one could quite pinpoint who had started it.

Gautier perhaps kept his mouth shut for his own protection. Sitting in the front row of graduating students, the two contesting factions glared daggers at each other, but all outbreaks of violence at the actual event were avoided.

The weather was beautiful, cloudless and sunny, and the full heat of summer hadn’t yet arrived. Everyone was arrayed out in their dress uniforms in stiff plastic chairs on the green, in front of a constructed stage on which the ceremony was conducted.

Reuenthal gave a fine speech. He was one of the few students who was not ugly-bruised, but only because he had been able to avoid getting hit. Yang didn’t have to speak: after a debacle involving Eisenach failing to drop to third place the year before, someone in the IOA administration had decided that it would be far less of a headache to have only the valedictorian speak at graduation, and not the second place.

Yang remembered Eisenach’s smirk and message that he had sent to Yang on that subject: “They’re just lucky I never bothered to take first. I could have, but I figured I’d spare them the trouble.”

“How generous of you,” Yang had said.

After the speeches, everyone walked across the stage in rank order to receive their diploma and commission. Although their class had started out 1500 students strong, their number had dwindled to a mere thousand over the four years, many students unable to handle the rigors of the work and the social pressures of the school.

When the ceremony was over, most of the students (no longer students!) went to find their families. Though Reuenthal had been right next to Yang at the conclusion of the event, he somehow immediately vanished into the crowd.

Yang tried to find him, but, before he could, he was stopped by someone who came up to him and grabbed him from behind. He stiffened, his first instinct being that it was someone attacking him, but then he realized that the hands wrapping around his midsection were far too low to be from another IOA student, and the voice yelling, “Hank!” definitely belonged to a ten year old girl.

Yang extracted himself from Hildegarde Mariendorf’s vice-like backwards grip with some difficulty.

“Fraulein Hilde,” he said with a wide smile when he was finally able to turn around and look at her properly. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“My dad wanted it to be a surprise,” she said. “Oskar sent us the invitation and told us not to tell you we were going to be here.” Hilde was dressed in a smart little suit jacket, with her hair tied back in a short ponytail. She could have looked like the younger brother to half the students here.

“I’m glad you did come, though I’m sure it wasn’t very exciting.”

“It was,” Hilde said. “I liked Oskar’s speech.”

“He did a good job,” Yang agreed. “Have you seen him? I lost track of where he went.” Yang and Hilde both peered out through the crowd, though Hilde had a significant disadvantage, coming up only to Yang’s shoulder, and Yang himself was a little shorter than average.

While they were both looking around for Reuenthal, Count Mariendorf appeared, finally having made his way through the crowd to where his daughter and Yang were standing.

“Congratulations, Sub-lieutenant von Leigh,” the count said.

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “Thank you, sir. I’m, uh, grateful that you came.” Grateful was not exactly the right word—Yang was perpetually overwhelmed by the kindness that the count showed to him for what felt like no reason.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said with a smile. “If I’m allowed to say such things, I’m very glad to see what a fine young man you’ve become over the past couple of years. “

“Thank you, sir,” Yang said, feeling fiercely awkward.

“Is Oskar around?” the count asked. “I would love to congratulate him, as well.”

“We were just looking for him,” Hilde said.

“Hm. He’s always been a little slippery.”

“I’ll thank you for coming on his behalf,” Yang said. “I don’t know if he would say so in person, but he is grateful for your friendship.” The last word wasn’t quite right, but Yang would have to take it.

The count smiled. “I know,” he said. “I try not to tie myself in knots worrying about him. My wife always did, for all the good it did either of them.”

The mention of the late countess was a sad one, but the wound had healed a little over the past three years. Yang just nodded.

“He’s probably still around,” Yang said. “We can look for him, if you want.”

“Of course. I’d like to take you both out to lunch, if you don’t have any pressing concerns on your time.”

“Not at all,” Yang said. “We’re allowed to stay in the dorms for the next two days, until we ship out to our first assignments.”

“It’s a shame you don’t get the summer off,” the count said as they pushed through the crowd, looking for Reuenthal.

“No rest for the wicked,” Yang said.

They didn’t find Reuenthal, though they did run into first Wahlen and his family, then Bittenfeld and his. Yang made the introductions with more or less grace, and Hilde seemed happy to meet Yang’s friends. It was impossible to miss, when walking away, the booming voice of Bittenfeld’s father (somehow even louder than his son), asking, “Now, why couldn’t you make friends with a count like your number two over there?”

The whole ordeal made Yang cringe.

Still unable to find Reuenthal, Yang eventually let Hilde ride on his back, to see if she could see him over the crowd. When she said no, Yang said to the count, “Maybe he went back to the dorm already? I can go look, if you want.”

Mariendorf had a pensive look on his face. “We can look.”

So Yang led the count and Hilde back towards the senior dorms. “Did you want to come in?” he asked, holding the main door open.

“No, I think there’s no reason for me to invade young men’s privacy,” the count said with a smile.

“I want to see Oskar’s room,” Hilde protested.

“He might not even be there,” Yang said. “In which case, you’d only see the outside of his door, which is nothing special.” He glanced at the count, asking permission, since Hilde was not letting go of his sleeve. The count waved his hand, and so Yang and Hilde entered the dorm.

The place was weirdly quiet and empty feeling, like the building itself was holding its breath as it waited for this group of students to leave forever. Yang and Hilde trooped up the stairs, passed Yang’s room, which he pointed out, and then turned the corner towards Reuenthal’s.

As soon as they did so, shouting became audible. Hilde stopped in her tracks, as though she had been struck, and she grabbed onto Yang’s arm, hard enough that her little fingernails dug in through his sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Yang asked.

“That’s Oskar’s dad,” Hilde whispered.

“How do you know?” Yang asked, but Hilde didn’t get a chance to answer before there was another round of shouting.

“And what do you expect me to do with all of this shit?” Reuenthal’s father yelled.

“Hilde,” Yang whispered, “Do you remember the way we came in?” She nodded. “Go back out to your dad, okay?”

She shook her head and clutched Yang’s arm. Yang was torn in several different directions. He wanted to somehow help Reuenthal, but he knew that Reuenthal would not want his help. He wanted Hilde to not see whatever was happening just down the hall, but he also couldn’t get her to go away.

“Can you stay here, then?” Yang asked. “I need to go deal with this.” He pried her fingers off his arm as gently as he could. “If anything bad happens, you go run to your dad.”

The shouting down the hall continued, with Reuenthal’s father yelling something about Reuenthal not leaving things in his house. Yang straightened his back and put a smile on his face. Rear guard actions, wasn’t it?

He walked towards Reuenthal’s room, where his father stood menacingly in the open doorway, the same height as Reuenthal, but broad where Reuenthal was lithe. Yang ignored him completely.

“Hey, Reuenthal,” he said, looking into the room where his friend stood next to a few neatly taped cardboard boxes, which presumably contained all of his belongings—the room was stripped bare, aside from the few crisp and new sub-lieutenant uniforms hanging up in the closet. “Want to go to lunch?”

Neither Reuenthal nor his father seemed able to process Yang’s sudden presence. The intrusion made the yelling stop, at the very least. Reuenthal went through several emotional shifts as he saw Yang, conveyed through the tiny twitching of his eyes and the way he held his shoulders: he had been standing stiffly under his father’s tirade, then his eyes lit up briefly when he saw Yang, but that didn’t last-- as soon as rational thought kicked in he became defensive. That tiny fraction of relief that Yang saw was all he needed, though, to keep him on his course. Reuenthal could be upset later.

“Who the fuck are you?” Reuenthal’s father asked, getting right into Yang’s personal space. He was sweaty up close, and smelled like he had been drinking earlier, though he didn’t seem drunk now.

Yang continued to ignore him, looking steadily at Reuenthal, as though his father didn’t exist at all. “It’s past lunch time, and I’m hungry, and we’ve got nothing better to do, right?” Yang asked. “Let’s go. My treat.”

“I said, who the fuck are you?” Reuenthal’s father repeated.

“I have to deal with this,” Reuenthal said, voice very tight. 

“No, you don’t,” Yang said. “Come on.”

“Is this one of your ‘friends’?” Reuenthal’s father asked, turning towards him.

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said. 

Reuenthal’s father snorted derisively and pushed Yang’s shoulder, hard. Yang took a single step sideways, but continued to ignore him. Reuenthal’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “Let’s go have lunch,” Yang said once again. He was taking it as a kind of victory that Reuenthal hadn’t yet told him to leave.

“Clearly, all your friends are as worthless as you are,” Reuenthal’s father said. “Though the fact that anyone tolerates you continues to amaze. You should leave,” he said, to Yang. “He doesn’t want you here.”

“Leigh,” Reuenthal began, his voice steady but with an undercurrent of pleading. “I can talk to you later.”

“I want to have lunch now,” Yang said. “What do you need to do in order to come get lunch?”

“He’s not leaving with you,” Reuenthal’s father said.

“I would like to put my stuff in the car, so that it can be taken home,” Reuenthal said. “That’s all.”

“I’m not taking your shit,” Reuenthal’s father said.

“Just put it in the basement.”

“I’m not putting it anywhere. I don’t know what right you have to keep things on my property.”

Yang, who continued to steadfastly ignore Reuenthal’s father, wanted to yell, ‘Because he’s your son,’ but he resisted the temptation.

“I’m sure we can find somewhere to put your stuff,” Yang said. There was no way that the Mariendorfs would refuse to take Reuenthal’s things, or they could even be shipped to Mittermeyer, if it came to that.

“I can’t impose,” Reuenthal said.

His father laughed. “You’re damn right you can’t.”

“Please just take the boxes, sir,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll come get them out as soon as I can.”

Yang stepped into the room, bent down, and picked up one of the boxes. It wasn’t too heavy, so he suspected that this one was filled with Reuenthal’s bedding and perhaps school uniforms that he would no longer need. Or maybe Reuenthal wasn’t so sentimental as to bother keeping those. “Where do you want me to put this?” Yang asked. “I’ll take it where it needs to go.” He figured that anything to break this stalemate would be better than standing around perpetually having a yes/no argument.

“Leigh,” Reuenthal said again. “I’ll deal with it.”

“I want to help. Where do you want your stuff to go?”

“There’s a car in the lot out back,” Reuenthal said after a second, when it became clear that Yang was not going to back down. “The green one.”

Yang took several steps forward, but found his passage out of the room blocked by Reuenthal’s father. “Excuse me,” Yang said, finally forced to acknowledge his presence.

“That is not going in my car,” he said.

“I’m taking it downstairs,” Yang said. “Please excuse me.” He attempted to duck under Reuenthal’s father’s spread arm, but the arm came down hard and knocked the box out of Yang’s hands, sending it tumbling to the floor in the dark hallway. 

Yang ducked out into the hallway, now that he was unencumbered by the box, and picked it up from the floor. He took a couple steps down the hall, then Reuenthal’s father grabbed his shoulder, yanking him backwards. “That is not going in my car,” he repeated.

Yang went back to ignoring him, and tried to shrug out of his grip, but he couldn’t quite escape, and Reuenthal’s father was bruising his arm. “Please let go of me,” Yang said, with as calm and flat of a voice as he could.

“Put the box down,” Reuenthal’s father said.

“It doesn’t belong to you,” Yang said. “No.”

The flat denial was apparently too much for Reuenthal’s father, and he grabbed Yang’s collar from behind and threw him to the floor. Yang hit the ground, and dropped the box, but wasn’t seriously injured. He was about to start picking himself up when he heard Hilde yell, “Hank!” and come charging down the hall.

“Hilde!” Yang shouted. “Go downstairs!”

But Hilde positioned herself with her hands on her hips in front of the prone Yang, in between him and Reuenthal’s father. She glared up at him. 

“Oh, and the little Mariendorf is here, as well,” Reuenthal’s father said. “How cute. It’s amazing how you’ve amassed such a following of useless hangers-on, Oskar.”

Yang scrambled to his feet. “Do not speak to her like that.”

“Then leave,” Reuenthal’s father said. “I have no idea why you’re here.”

“Leigh, please take her out of here,” Reuenthal said, and now there was a real kind of fear in his eyes, flicking between Hilde and his father. 

Yang put his hand on Hilde’s shoulder, and bent down to speak in her ear, “Please go back downstairs, fraulein.” 

She shook her head vehemently. Reuenthal’s father laughed, an ugly, bitter sound. It was cruel, Yang thought, that his voice was just like Reuenthal’s in its timbre. But Reuenthal never sounded like that.

“Sir, please let me put my things in the car. That’s all I want.”

“All you want?” Again, with the bitter laugh. “That’s never all.” He advanced a few steps towards Reuenthal, which on one hand was a relief because it took him further away from Hilde, but on the other hand, he was moving closer to Reuenthal, which seemed like towards the eye of the storm.

“Reuenthal, we can put your stuff somewhere else,” Yang said. “Don’t worry about it. Please.” He knew the idea of accepting that kind of help was abhorrent to Reuenthal, but he wanted this situation to end. 

“Leigh, please just go,” Reuenthal said. “I can deal with this myself.”

“And what are you dealing with?” Reuenthal’s father asked, taking yet another step forward. Reuenthal didn’t step back, but he half met Yang’s eyes over his father’s shoulder. 

“I am just trying to pack up my room, sir,” Reuenthal said. 

“What are you looking at?” Reuenthal’s father asked suddenly.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Look at me when I am speaking to you.”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said, but continued to look behind his father at Yang, an unreadable expression on his face.

That was all it took for Reuenthal’s father to lose what was left of his composure, and with one quick forward motion, he punched Reuenthal in the stomach, hard enough that the impact was audible. Reuenthal could have dodged or blocked the punch, but he didn’t, just standing there and taking it. There was a brief moment of silence, then Hilde wrenched herself out of Yang’s grip and threw herself onto Reuenthal’s father, whaling on his back with her skinny little arms.

Yang leapt for her at the same time that Reuenthal’s father turned around. He would probably have hit her, had two things not happened almost simultaneously: Yang grabbed Hilde’s waist and pulled her out of harm’s way, and Reuenthal punched his father hard in the mouth. He was sent crashing backwards into the wall, knocking over two of Reuenthal’s boxes. 

Yang kept a firm grip on Hilde, despite how much she was trying to wiggle out of his grasp. Reuenthal’s father got to his feet slowly, rubbing his jaw and opening and closing his mouth like a snake.

“You’ll pay for that,” he said, then turned, storming out of the room, past Yang and Hilde. When he was gone, the tension in the room changed, and Reuenthal glared at Yang.

“I told you to take her downstairs.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said, though he was apologizing more for everything that had just happened than he was for not leaving. 

In his moment of distraction, Hilde escaped his grasp, and ran towards Reuenthal. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shirt. “I’m sorry you had to see that, fraulein,” he said, and patted her back. He didn’t have any natural graces around children, but he had regained his composure enough to at least say that much to the sniffling Hilde. “It’s okay.”

* * *

They did end up having lunch with the count, who looked at Reuenthal’s stiff face and silently agreed to not discuss whatever had held the three of them up inside the dorm for so long. He would hear the story from Hilde, probably, but that would be later, and Yang wouldn’t have to be around to explain how exactly the whole thing had gone so wrong. At least Hilde hadn’t gotten hurt-- that would have been inexcusable-- and she would probably paint both Yang and Reuenthal in the kindest possible light, granted by her childish innocence and overall devotion to the two.

Later that night, though, as Yang packed up his own room, throwing out huge stacks of papers and old notebooks, he wished that Reuenthal would speak to him. He knew he had severely overstepped his personal bounds and that Reuenthal would probably not forgive him for that, but he didn’t want to leave on such an unspeaking low note. 

He kept glancing at his phone, hoping that Reuenthal would message him, and with every set of footsteps in the hallway, he hoped that it was Reuenthal coming by to knock on his door. It wasn’t, though, and eventually Yang laid in his bed in his now too-empty room and stared up at the ceiling. When the clock read two in the morning, and he was completely unable to fall asleep, he finally gave up on waiting for Reuenthal and texted him.

> are you up?

To his surprise, Reuenthal did text back after a minute or so.

< yes.

> can we talk?

There wasn’t a response to that question, but Yang assumed that his willingness to text back in the first place was as much of an invitation as he was going to get. He got out of bed and walked in bare feet down the hall to Reuenthal’s room. He thought about knocking on the door, then just tried the handle, in order to not make noise in the hallway. The door opened.

Reuenthal was sitting on the floor. He had his boxes back open in front of him, and he was carefully going through them, sorting his honestly meager possessions into two categories. 

Yang sat down cross legged on the floor in front of him and just watched for a minute. Reuenthal picked up the chunk of pyrite and copper that had decorated his bookshelf for several years and turned it around in his hands a few times, then put it in one of the categories, though Yang couldn’t figure out what the categories meant.

“What are you doing?”

“Determining what I can mail to Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said. “I’m not going to spend hundreds of marks that I don’t have on postage.”

“You should have asked the Mariendorfs--”

“I am not going to ask the Mariendorfs to loan me their pity,” Reuenthal said. His tone was positively venomous.

Yang fell silent and just watched. Reuenthal continued to sort. One of the categories ended up far larger than the other, encompassing most of Reuenthal’s belongings. The small pile, Reuenthal began to neatly pack into one box-- mostly important documents, a couple books, some data disks, one or two trinkets that were either small or sentimental enough to live. It was a ruthless pruning, and Yang felt pretty bad watching it.

“I’m sorry for causing you trouble,” Yang said finally, as Reuenthal picked up the trashed objects and tossed them into the other empty boxes.

“It’s fine,” Reuenthal said shortly.

“You are upset at me, though.”

“You don’t have to stick your nose into things,” Reuenthal said. “There’s a reason that I didn’t want you to see any of that. It’s not your problem.”

“If I held that same stance, I’d have bled out on the ground of Neue Sanssouci several years ago,” Yang said, a wry note in his voice.

“The two situations are quite different.”

“I’m not sure how you expect me to walk away from a situation when I see that you’re…” He didn’t know how to end the sentence. ‘Suffering’ felt too melodramatic, and ‘in trouble’ felt like the wrong tone completely. “I think that doing that would make me a pretty poor friend.”

“But a less stupid man,” Reuenthal said.

“You threw a punch at Gautier for me. I could say that that was equally stupid.”

“Gautier is an inconsequential person.”

“At the risk of making you angrier at me,” Yang began, “I will say that your father is as well.”

Reuenthal didn’t say anything for a moment, just began writing Mittermeyer’s address on the side of his one packed box with a thick black marker.

“It’s hard for me to get angry at that, because it’s almost hilariously untrue.” There was no trace of humor in Reuenthal’s voice whatsoever. 

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s my father.”

“He doesn’t own you.”

“He thinks he does.”

“What he thinks is his problem.”

“And yet, somehow, also mine.”

Yang shook his head. “You’re leaving. You’re going to have a career and surpass him in every way. You never have to speak to him again.”

“And then what will I be left with, Leigh?” Reuenthal asked.

Idly, Yang picked up the marker that Reuenthal had dropped on the floor, and twirled it around in his hands. “People who actually care about you.”

“Small comforts.”

“You don’t have to insult me, and you certainly don’t have to insult Mittermeyer.”

“It was not intended as any kind of insult,” Reuenthal said.

“I’m not sure what it was intended as, then.”

Reuenthal didn’t have a response to that, and looked across at Yang with an inscrutable expression. 

After a moment of silence, Yang said, “It might not be enough for you, but it has to be enough for me. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Will it be enough in five years? In ten?” Reuenthal asked. “You’re about to leave me, Wen-li.” And there was the root of the bitterness, the fear that this all was temporary.

Yang closed his eyes before speaking. “What do you want me to tell you?” he asked. 

“The truth.”

“There’s no such thing,” Yang said. “Especially not about the future.”

“I know.” Reuenthal’s voice was tired-- perhaps Yang had said the wrong thing. He didn’t want Reuenthal to believe that he wasn’t completely sincere in saying that he could rely on him. 

“You know who I am,” Yang said finally, trying to elaborate on what he meant. “I would do anything for you. But…”

“But.”

“I told you, a long time ago, that I am a man with the wrong kind of ambitions,” Yang said. “Do you want to tie yourself to my sinking ship? If you do...”

“You’re telling me that there is no other.”

“There’s your own.”

“And you think that that alone would be enough?”

“I believe that you could make it enough, if you needed to. But you have Mittermeyer, and he isn’t nearly so likely to sink.”

“I do have Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said, sounding somewhat melancholy. “That’s true.” He paused. Yang’s eyes were still closed, but he opened them when Reuenthal said his next line. “But I also said then that I was a man with the wrong kind of ambitions.”

“A different kind.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What are you saying?”

“You would do anything for me.”

“Yes.”

“Then I would do the same for you.”

“It wouldn’t be against your nature?” Yang asked, meeting Reuenthal’s eyes.

“No.”

“What are you saying?” Yang asked again, very quietly.

“Aren’t some things better left unsaid, around here?” That was the way things had always been, but Yang felt a shift in the air, like the drop in air pressure before a storm. He shook his head, ever so slightly.

Reuenthal reached out across the distance between them, and Yang grabbed his hand. “You have my loyalty, in whatever you do,” Reuenthal said. “If that is enough for you.”

“Yes,” Yang breathed. “It is.”

**End of Part One.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pomp and Circumstance is the name of the music that's played at basically every graduation I've ever had the misfortune of attending, though really just the middle section on repeat forever.
> 
> And here we come to the end of part one! I hope you've enjoyed this journey on noodle's wild ride. This whole thing was written in like uh. 20 days. Part two coming [mumbling] sometime. Part two will feature the other neglected half of this equation: Reinhard, of whom we have seen neither hide nor hair thus far.
> 
> I would love to hear what you've thought of the story. If you're fanart inclined, please, [eyes emoji], or if you have any desire to translate this text into another language, you have my explicit permission (please link me, even if it's a language I don't speak lol). 
> 
> As always, thank you to Lydia for beta reading, and if you're bored while waiting for me to write part two of this story, please feel free to check out my monster original space opera (it's many hundreds of thousands of words long), so it should keep you entertained for a good long while: bit.ly/shadowofheaven


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